Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits, in advance of the organisation of any smallpox vaccination programme, of a business support scheme to enable venues which may expose clients to a higher risk of exposure to monkeypox in the UK outbreak to temporarily close with no loss of revenues to interrupt chains of transmission.

Monkeypox does not spread easily between people and the risk to the United Kingdom’s population remains low. Work to understand the data and the clustering of cases is continuing which will inform any targeted vaccination beyond those directly infected. Emerging data shows that there are specific clusters of transmission in certain demographics in the community.

Guidance for venues and other locations where there is a higher risk of transmission is currently under consideration. This will include appropriate public health advice on cleaning and decontamination to limit the potential spread of infection.