If you're still reeling from the Covid pandemic, well sorry but there's another virus to get to grips with. This time it's monkeypox and there are around 80 confirmed cases in 11 countries, including the UK, that would not normally expect to have the disease.

So what is going on? Is it time to worry or are we getting overly excited having just lived through Covid?

Let's be clear: this is not another Covid and we're not days away from lockdowns to contain the spread of monkeypox.

However, this is an unusual and unprecedented monkeypox outbreak. It has taken scientists who specialise in the disease by complete surprise and it is always a concern when a virus changes its behaviour.

Until now, monkeypox was pretty predictable.

The virus's natural home is wild animals, which are actually thought to be rodents rather than monkeys. Somebody in the rainforests of Western and Central Africa comes into contact with an infected creature and the virus makes the jump across species. Their skin erupts in a rash, which blisters and then scabs over.

The virus is now outside its usual home and struggles to spread so it needs prolonged close contact to keep going. So outbreaks tend to be small and burn out on their own.

Small numbers of cases have cropped up elsewhere in the world before, including the UK, but all can be immediately linked to somebody travelling to an affected country and bringing it home.

That is no longer the case.

For the first time the virus is being found in people with no clear connection to Western and Central AfricaIt is not clear who people are catching it fromMonkeypox is spreading during sexual activities with most cases having lesions on their genitals and the surrounding areaMany of those affected are gay and bisexual young men

"We're in a very new situation, that is a surprise and a worry," Prof Sir Peter Horby, the director of the University of Oxford's Pandemic Sciences Institute, told me.

While he says this is "not Covid-Two", he said "we need to act" to prevent the virus getting a foothold as this is "something we really want to avoid".

Dr Hugh Adler, who has treated patients with monkeypox, agrees: "It's not a pattern we've seen before - this is a surprise."