Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said

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"Countries should update their contact tracing mechanisms, their diagnostic capacity for orthopoxviruses and review the availability of smallpox vaccines, antivirals and personal protective equipment (PPE) for health professionals," the ECDC said it its report.

Germany has ordered 40,000 doses of the newer smallpox and monkeypox vaccine, according to reports. The country's government health agency, the Robert Koch Institute, has recommended that people who contract monkeypox and their close contacts self-isolate for at least three weeks.

Wednesday news conference that while "it is important to take tough and pre-emptive action" early against the spreading contagion, German officials didn't expect the handful of cases confirmed in the country to grow into an epidemic.

This is a "known virus and we know how to combat it," Lauterbach said.

There have been reported cases of monkeypox, which is endemic in buy phone number list parts of central and west Africa but rare in other parts of the world, in the U.S., U.K., Slovenia, the Czech Republic, and nine European Union member states, including Belgium, Spain, France, Austria, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Sweden, and the Netherlands.

The ECDC says "monkeypox does not spread easily between people" and that most cases in the current outbreak have had mild disease symptoms, though there is thought to be a risk of more severe disease in some vulnerable groups, including pregnant and immunosuppressed people and young children.

The European health agency said the overall risk to the broader population remained "low," while people with multiple sexual partners were at "moderate" risk.

So far, the World Health Organization has registered more than 250 suspected and confirmed infections. The majority of the cases have been reported in men who have sex with men, and the WHO has highlighted the risk of sexual transmission of monkeypox in particular.