Legislation has been laid today, June 7, which will make monkeypox a notifiable infectious disease under the Health Protection (Notification) Regulations 2010 from June 8 This means all doctors in England are required to notify their local council or local Health Protection Team (HPT) if they suspect a patient has monkeypox. Laboratories must also notify the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) if the monkeypox virus is identified in a laboratory sample. Wendi Shepherd, monkeypox incident director at UKHSA, said: “Rapid diagnosis and reporting is the key to interrupting transmission and containing any further spread of monkeypox. This new legislation will support us and our health partners to swiftly identify, treat and control the disease.” “It also supports us with the swift collection and analysis of data which enables us to detect possible outbreaks of the disease and trace close contacts rapidly, whilst offering vaccinations where appropriate to limit onward transmission.” If you get infected with monkeypox, it usually takes between 5 and 21 days for the first symptoms to appear. The first symptoms of monkeypox include: a high temperature, headache, muscle aches, backache, swollen glands, shivering (chills) and exhaustion A rash usually appears 1 to 5 days after the first symptoms. The rash often begins on the face, and then spreads to other parts of the body. This can include the genitals. The rash is sometimes confused with chickenpox. It starts as raised spots, which turn into small blisters filled with fluid. These blisters eventually form scabs which later fall off. The symptoms usually clear up in a few weeks. Monkeypox can be caught from infected rodents (such as rats, mice and squirrels) in parts of west and central Africa. You can catch monkeypox from an infected animal if you’re bitten or you touch its blood, body fluids, spots, blisters or scabs. It may also be possible to catch monkeypox by eating meat from an infected animal from central or west Africa that has not been cooked thoroughly, or by touching other products from infected animals (such as animal skin or fur). Monkeypox can also spread from person to person through: touching clothing, bedding or towels used by someone with the monkeypox rash, touching monkeypox skin blisters or scabs (including during sex) and the coughs or sneezes of a person with the monkeypox rash.