Smallpox of monkeys: cases increase in Italy. This is how it contracts

What is monkeypox?

It is an infection transmitted by a virus similar to human smallpox. But while human smallpox was eradicated in 1980 thanks to a worldwide vaccination campaign, monkeypox continued to circulate in some animals (rodents, actually, not monkeys). Occasionally it passed from animals to man, almost always in Africa and with limited numbers.