“It’s probably premature and potentially even harmful to assume that there are only cases within that community,” she said. Agam Rao, a medical officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Division of High Consequence Pathogens and Pathology, told NBC News that monkeypox isn’t considered a sexually transmitted disease. While many of the recent cases of monkeypox are among men who have sex with men, Dr. “There’s reason to assume that the virus has been brought in by visitors from abroad to the festival after recent cases in other countries,” they said in a statement. He told the Associated Press that another link may be a Pride event in the Canary Islands that saw around 80,000 people in attendance, the news wire reported Monday.Įlsewhere in Europe, an outbreak of monkeypox in Belgium has been connected to visitors at the Darklands fetish festival in early May, PinkNews reports.Īt least three cases have been linked to the festival, according to the organizers.