As Kiwi health officials prepare for a possible monkeypox outbreak in Aotearoa New Zealand, the associate health minister is reassuring people the disease is unlikely to spawn a major local epidemic.
This week on In the Loop podcast, hosts Cheree Kinnear and Katie Harris give listeners a rundown on the virus and what the experts are saying.
The illness was first identified by scientists in 1958 when there were two outbreaks of a "pox-like" disease in research monkeys - thus the name monkeypox.
The first known human infection was in 1970, in a 9-year-old boy in a remote part of Congo.