A state laboratory in Maryland, USA, plans to create a more lethal strain of monkeypox in studies on mice.

Experts want to combine the dominant strain, which mainly causes rashes and flu-like symptoms, with genes from another strain that causes more severe disease.

The goal of their research is to understand how different genes can make monkeypox more lethal, which could be used to develop more effective drugs and vaccines.

A week ago, the DailyMail reported that a similar experiment involving a hybrid Covid-19 strain was conducted at Boston University in the United States.

The latest monkeypox study is funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

However, Dr. Richard Ebright, a microbiologist at Rutgers University in New Jersey, notes that the modified virus poses an exceptionally high risk to the public if there is an accidental leak from the lab.

The Maryland team says their work does not involve modifying the pathogen because they are swapping out natural mutations rather than creating new ones, which means the hybrid cannot be more deadly than what already exists.

According to the publication, the news is surprising because such research continues in the U.S., despite concerns that such practices could lead to the beginning of a pandemic.