Explainer: How worried should we be about the monkeypox global health emergency?

A health worker works at a monkeypox ward set up at a government hospital in Hyderabad, India, Wednesday, July 20, 2022. India recorded its first monkeypox case earlier last week. (AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A.)

The rapidly spreading monkeypox outbreak constitutes a global health emergency, the World Health Organization's highest alert level, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared on Saturday. 

First identified in monkeys, the virus is transmitted chiefly through close contact with an infected person. Until this year, the viral disease has rarely spread outside Africa where it is endemic.