Monkeypox has been declared a 'global health emergency' by the World Health Organization

The WHO says that more than 16,000 people have been diagnosed with the disease in 75 countries, and five people have died from it.

So far, 839 cases have been reported in New York City, but the city's Department of Health says, "There are probably many more cases that haven't been diagnosed." That's about a third of the more than 2,400 cases of the disease that have been reported in the US.

“We have an outbreak that has spread around the world rapidly, through new modes of transmission, about which we understand too little,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a statement.

“For the moment this is an outbreak that is concentrated among men who have sex with men, especially those with multiple sexual partners,” he added. “That means that this is an outbreak that can be stopped with the right strategies in the right groups.”

The US government is worried that monkeypox could spread through sexual contact like gonorrhea, herpes, and HIV. The disease is already common in Africa, where most people get it from rodents and other small animals that bite them.

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