The head of Russia’s consumer protection watchdog said Monday that “traditional” values will help the country avoid an outbreak of the infectious viral disease mpox, which spreads through close physical and sexual contact.The World Health Organization declared a global health emergency last week as mpox, also known as monkeypox, continued to spread in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and elsewhere in Africa.

The agency notes that the disease “primarily affect[s] men who have sex with men.”“Considering the peculiarities of the ways it spreads, I’m absolutely sure that [mpox] is not dangerous or scary as an epidemic in Russia with its traditional values,” Anna Popova, who heads Rospotrebnadzor, told the Telegram news channel shot.A total of three monkeypox cases were detected “over the entire past period,” Popova said without specifying which time period she meant.

“We didn’t allow any of it to spread.”LGBTQ+ rights in Russia have come under pressure over the past decade as officials railed against what they called the antithesis of Russian “traditional” values.Last year, Russia’s Supreme Court designated the so-called “international LGBT public movement” as “extremist,” a move that essentially places all LGBTQ+ Russians at risk of criminal prosecution.