On Monday, the French National Authority for Health (HAS) urged at-risk populations to get a mpox (monkeypox) booster vaccine. This includes sex workers, people working in sex locations, men who have sex with men, trans people who have multiple sex partners, and people who reside in the same living space as those previously mentioned.

The country is reportedly "facing a real pandemic risk," according to Anne-Claude Cremieux, the President of the HAS technical committee on vaccinations, who cited an increase in infections in the recommendation, as per Le Monde.

"This is perhaps one of the rare occasions when, faced with a potentially pandemic virus, we are in a position to intervene with the disease is still confined to a limited target population. We need to learn from the past," said Cremieux.

There have been 126 reported monkeypox cases in France since the beginning of the year, and health officials are concerned the disease could spread without taking measures. In 2022 and 2023, there were 100,000 cases of the disease, which affected 117 countries. The disease originated in Africa and had only affected a few African countries before it spread across the world.

The cause of concern is a new variant (1b), which was identified in the Republic of Congo before it rapidly spread to neighboring countries. The first cluster of 1b to be identified in France occurred in April.