Politics

Biden Warns Of Potentially ‘Consequential’ Spread Of New Monkeypox Virus

[Screenshot/YouTube/Guardian News]

Chris Bertman Contributor
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President Joe Biden said “everybody should be concerned” about the monkeypox outbreak during a Sunday trip to South Korea.

Biden responded to questions about the disease by emphasizing that “if it were to spread, it would be consequential,” CBS reported.

Although there are reportedly only two confirmed cases of monkeypox in the United States and 80 confirmed worldwide, Biden appeared to urge concern over the disease, which health experts are still studying, Fox News reported. (RELATED: Outbreak Of Monkeypox Linked To Massive Festival For The ‘Gay Fetish Community’)

“Everybody should be concerned about [it],” the president replied when asked about the disease. “We’re working on it, hard to figure out what we do.”

“I’m stunned by this. Every day I wake up and there are more countries infected,” virologist and World Health Organization advisory board member Oyewale Tomori said. “This is not the kind of spread we’ve seen in West Africa, so there may be something new happening in the West.”

While there are no reported deaths from monkeypox, the disease is has a potential one-in-ten fatality rate according to WHO estimates.

The first case of monkeypox in the United States was confirmed by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health on Wednesday, while a second case was later confirmed in New York, according to Fox.