Monkeypox can spread in 3 ways – Here’s what to know and how to avoid infection

Even though experts don’t expect monkeypox to be the next COVID, the virus still isn’t something you want to mess with, particularly if you’re immunocompromised, pregnant, or have certain skin conditions, like eczema.

The dominant way to catch and spread monkeypox is by touching an infected person who has rashes, scabs, bodily fluids, or lesions on their skin, which can resemble a tiny pimple or a pus-filled bump that can be as big as the size of a marble.

Infection can be avoided by washing parts of the body that have briefly come into contact with the infection before it enters your body after you touch your face, mouth, nose, or genitals.

But a light brush against or even a handshake with a potentially infectious person doesn’t necessarily mean you caught the virus.

The infection is primarily spread through prolonged rubbing against an infected person’s lesions.

The World Health Organization in July suggested that men who have sex with men should “for the moment” reduce partners and reconsider sleeping with new people as a way to slow monkeypox spread.

The monkeypox virus can live on surfaces, but there is a very small likelihood of contracting the virus through touching infected surfaces.

This means you don’t have to fear touching groceries or mail, riding on public transportation, trying on clothes in a store dressing room, working out in a gym, or relaxing in a spa, the experts we spoke to said — at least not at this time.

“We’re really in this realm of what’s theoretically possible versus what is practically likely to happen, and I think getting monkeypox by trying on clothing in a store that somebody who is incubating monkeypox might have tried on just seems really far, far away from something that would happen,” Justman said, “even if there were kind of a theoretical dotted line.”

The monkeypox virus can live on surfaces and in the air that an infected person in breathing