Mpox unlikely to lead to school closures, say US public health experts

NEW YORK — Despite the World Health Organization (WHO) recently declaring mpox a global health emergency, US public health experts believe that mpox is highly unlikely to cause school closures, according to local media reports.

As debates continue over the potential impact of the mpox outbreak on education, US federal health officials do not foresee mpox cases leading to school lockdowns similar to those seen during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This is not like COVID, where there’s nothing visible on somebody,” Christina Hutson, head of the poxvirus and rabies branch at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told NBC. With mpox, “you actually can see the lesions on somebody. Unless you’re directly touching them, you’re not going to get infected.”

Carlos del Rio, a professor of medicine and infectious disease expert at Emory University in Atlanta, echoed this sentiment, noting that the mpox outbreak in Africa is concerning, but schools in the US will not shut down if the virus spreads within the country. “The approach to this virus is very different,” he said.

Michelle Taylor, director and health officer of the Shelby County Health Department in Memphis, Tennessee, emphasized that mpox is not airborne and that there is no evidence suggesting the virus is mutating or spreading in a way that would necessitate school closures. “Based on the science, I just don’t believe that’s going to happen,” she added.

WHO Secretary-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus recently stated that the new mpox virus can be controlled, noting that more than 100,000 confirmed mpox cases have been reported to the WHO since the global outbreak began in 2022, with an unprecedented increase in cases in Africa. — Agencies