As of Monday, there were three confirmed cases of Monkeypox in Missouri, and the number is likely to rise. KRPS’s Fred Fletcher-Fierro has more.

Monkeypox has been around for a while now. The first known case in humans dates back to 1970. Though there are vaccines for smallpox and chickenpox that have been hugely successful in dramatically lowering the transmission rates of those infectious diseases, there is no known cure and limited vaccine available for Monkeypox.

Doctor of Infectious Diseases Uwe Schmidt of Freeman Health System in Joplin is concerned about the outbreak becoming another pandemic. “The scary part is now, these cases abroad suddenly seem to be spreading out of control. Before, there was very little risk that everyone else was infected because human to human transmission was extremely rare.”

When people get infected with Monkeypox, the chance of death from the disease is averaging about 3.5%.