Monkeypox is spread by other means. Sexual transmission is the most likely BUT it isn't the only transmission. One has to come into repeated contact with a pox that is leaking. So a person with monkeypox on their hand and pets a dog can give monkeypox to the dog. A person with the pox on a leg wearing shorts and bouncing a child on their leg can spread it. .6% is pretty low but far from impossible.
Here's where there has been a lot of confusion. So yes, it is possible for monkeypox to transmit nonsexually. There are examples where people catch the virus through face-to-face interactions with someone or by touching a contaminated surface. But data from this outbreak shows these routes of transmission are extremely rare in public settings, and when they do occur, it most likely happens when you live with an infected person, says Dr. Susan McLellan.
"During this outbreak, there will probably be at least one random case where somebody gets it on a bus. But, you know, that's going to be profoundly rare, probably less likely than being hit by that bus," she says. "If monkeypox were easily transmitted on the subway, on buses, we would be seeing it among a very different population than almost purely among the population where transmission is occurring mostly during close, intimate contact."
The virus just doesn't spread well through these nonsexual routes, data show. For example, in this current outbreak, only about 0.2% of people infected have caught the virus from a contaminated surface, the World Health Organization reported this week.
In general, to catch the virus through a nonsexual route, you likely need prolonged exposure to the virus or exposure to a large amount of virus, says infectious disease specialist Dr.
Peter Chin-Hong at the University of California, San Francisco. It likely takes hours of repeatedly touching the virus on surfaces or breathing in particles to get infected. Or you would have to rub vigorously against another person's skin or mucous membranes, Chin-Hong says. "You would have to brush against them, like a scrubbing brush, to then make an abrasion in your skin that monkeypox can enter," he explains. "That would then cause a lesion on your arm, which we haven't really seen in this outbreak."
So you're not going to catch monkeypox through casual contact with a contaminated surface or infected person, Chin-Hong says. You're not going to get it while trying on a jacket at the thrift store or brushing against someone with a monkeypox rash on a bus at a festival or sitting on a seat on a plane where the previous occupant was infected.
Even if you're living with a person infected with monkeypox, your risk of catching the disease is surprisingly low, says biologist Joseph Osmundson. Preliminary data, with a small number of cases, found that the chance of spreading monkeypox to a household member, not through sex, is only about 0.6%.
"I think that percentage may be a little low and will rise as we get more data," says Osmundson. "But household transmission rates for this strain in endemic countries [that is, countries where the virus is entrenched] ] is still only around 3%. And we're talking about sharing a bathroom with a person who's known to be infected in your home."
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