![]() “The risk of just touching objects in the gym or in the yoga studio is very, very small. What about being in shared, high-touch public spaces like a gym or a pool? “It's very, very low risk to get monkeypox in a swimming pool,” says Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease specialist at UCSF, says that clothing, materials and surfaces are most likely to be a method of virus transmission within the home of someone with monkeypox, specifically when someone else is having sustained contact with those items, rather than brief contact.īut going to the thrift store or purchasing bedding at Bed Bath & Beyond? “That's very, very low risk,” he said. “It’s not as easy as ‘I’m going to touch this doorknob and somebody with monkeypox just touched it so I’m going to get infected,’ ” she says.ĭr. ![]() Syra Madad, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Harvard’s Belfer Center, recently told Slate that “just because you have viral particles on a surface doesn’t mean (they’re) going to cause infection in another person.” That is, it’s not enough for that virus to be present - there also needs to be enough of that virus getting transferred first onto the surface by an infected person, and then onto the skin of someone who isn’t infected. Last week, the World Health Organization reported only around 0.2% of people infected are thought to have caught the virus from a contaminated surface in this current outbreak. Yes, that may sound pretty alarming, but the most recent data actually shows that monkeypox doesn’t do so well spreading through routes that don’t involve close physical or intimate contact. Monkeypox can live on surfaces - but your risk of being infected this way is lowĪccording to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one scientific study found that the monkeypox virus can live on surfaces for up to 15 days. As with COVID, you may find that advice and best practices around monkeypox evolve and shift as more scientific information becomes available.ĭon't see your question answered below, or in our other guides covering monkeypox? Send us your question and tell us what to cover. Keep reading for what you need to know about the risks of monkeypox and surfaces.Īlso, please remember that the advice that follows is based on what information we currently know and the data experts have right now about monkeypox. The short answer: your risk of catching monkeypox from surfaces is highest if you’re sharing a home with a person who has monkeypox. So how worried should you be about the risk of monkeypox spreading through surfaces or through the air? Another way monkeypox can be transmitted that’s far less common than skin-to-skin contact is on shared surfaces and items. Monkeypox can also spread via respiratory droplets through very close, sustained face-to-face contact. The main way that the virus spreads is via close, skin-to-skin contact with a person who’s infected with monkeypox - which includes sexual contact but is not limited to it. Right now, the monkeypox outbreak in the United States is particularly affecting communities of gay and bisexual men, and men who have sex with men, and the World Health Organization notes that trans people and gender-diverse people "may also be more vulnerable in the context of the current outbreak." And one of the biggest questions we’ve gotten from our audience: Do I need to worry about the risks of monkeypox and surfaces?Īnyone, regardless of sexual orientation or preference, can get monkeypox. We’ve been asking KQED readers and listeners "what do you need to know about monkeypox?"Īlthough monkeypox has existed among humans for over 50 years, this most recent outbreak in the United States has seen a significant amount of misinformation online about the disease and how it spreads.
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