Even as they raise alarms about Oregon’s growing monkeypox case count, health officials point to the virus’s relatively low risk of transmission to say those attending next week’s 10-day track and field championship in Eugene should not be too concerned.

“I am not worried,” said Dr. Patrick Luedtke, the top health official in Lane County, which currently has half of Oregon’s confirmed and presumed monkeypox cases.

As of Thursday, Oregon has six potential cases of the disease, five of them waiting for confirmation from federal health officials. That is almost certainly an undercount.

“We’re definitely underdiagnosing hMPXV cases at this point in time,” Dr. Tim Menza, director of the state’s sexually transmitted disease program, said at a Thursday media event to update the public about the virus spreading worldwide. “There’s probably a good amount of community transmission occurring in Oregon that may be unrecognized.”

And yet, the risk to the thousands of people expected to come for the World Athletics Championship in Eugene, from July 15 to July 24, is low, though not zero. Menza’s agency is trying to curb that spread by vaccinating people who are at risk and may have been exposed — which so far appears mostly to be men who have sex with men — while urging providers to set a low threshold for testing a patient for the virus.

Endemic to several African countries, monkeypox has rarely been found outside of that continent. In the current outbreak, 57 countries that don’t normally have cases have seen nearly 7,600, including nearly 700 cases in the United States. The last such outbreak was in 2003, which started with infected prairie dogs.

The disease is rarely fatal, and has so far killed none of those infected in America though it can be more dangerous for children, pregnant people and people with compromised immune symptoms. An infection can start out with flu-like symptoms and is accompanied by a rash and telltale lesions.

Several factors lessen the outbreak’s risk both during the World Athletics Championships and to the general public.

Crucially, the virus is difficult to contract. Unlike the coronavirus or the measles, it’s not enough to briefly breathe the same air as an infected person. Transmission requires prolonged and intimate contact, such as sex, kissing, cuddling, talking closely, caring for someone with the virus or sharing a living space or bedding.

“Outside of that, the risk is quite low,” said Dr. Mark Slifka, an Oregon Health & Science University expert on the monkeypox virus.

And, during this outbreak, it has been found almost exclusively among men who have sex with men, health officials say. That’s why the Oregon Health Authority considers cisgender and transgender men who have sex with men, as well as transgender women who have sex with men, to be at increased risk.

Men who have sex with men should make sure to get checked out if they find an inexplicable rash, Slifka said.

In what he said is “good news,” officials have several advantages when tackling the monkeypox outbreak. The virus was discovered about 50 years ago, and vaccines against it have long been in use, as have antivirals.

The Oregon Health Authority is currently using its limited supply of monkeypox vaccine doses to inoculate those who may have been exposed. As of Wednesday, eight people have received shots, out of the state’s stockpile of about 200, the agency said. Once more doses are available, the health authority hopes to offer shots to people at greater risk, Menza said.

Luedtke, the Lane County health official, said he has plenty of other disease-related concerns that rise above monkeypox.

That means the average person among the thousands coming to Eugene July 15 to July 24 shouldn’t be concerned that a stranger will give them monkeypox. The likelihood people attending track and field events will contract monkeypox from others in the bleachers, get monkeypox and then bring it back to the communities they are from is low, Luedtke said, as is the risk of contracting the disease from anybody at an outdoor event.

“If they are sports fans, I would suggest they come here,” Luedtke said. “If they’re sick, isolate.”

— Fedor Zarkhin