Mpox is back – and in new countries. How this outbreak can be contained

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A man infected with mpox at a hospital in Burundi. Photograph: Tchandrou Nitanga/AFP/Getty Images View image in fullscreen A man infected with mpox at a hospital in Burundi. Photograph: Tchandrou Nitanga/AFP/Getty Images Global health Mpox is back – and in new countries. How this outbreak can be contained The public health emergencies in 2022 and 2024 saw the virus reported in 145 countries, but in the new cases children appear particularly affected

About this content Kat Lay , Global health correspondent Wed 26 Aug 2026 12.00 BST Share Prefer the Guardian on Google A fresh outbreak of mpox in Guinea Bissau – the country’s first – means the virus formerly known as monkey pox is back in the headlines. So what has changed?

Since 2022, there have been almost 190,000 lab-confirmed cases of mpox reported worldwide in 145 countries. Before then, outbreaks of mpox tended to be relatively small and in a handful of African countries, where the viral infection was known to be endemic.

Mpox is an infectious disease that typically starts with flu-like symptoms, including fever, chills and aching muscles. These are followed by a distinctive rash, beginning as raised spots that turn into blisters filled with fluid before forming scabs.

View image in fullscreen A colourised electron microscope image shows Mpox virus particles, represented in green, found within infected cultured cells, represented in blue. The virus particles are in various stages of maturity, which accounts for their differences in shape. Photograph: AP It used to be called monkeypox, because the virus was first discovered in captive monkeys in 1958. But during an international outbreak in 2022, there were concerns that the name was fuelling racist and stigmatising language on and offline, prompting the World Health Organization (WHO) to recommend changing it to mpox .