I've read that monkeypox had mostly been seasonal in Africa and limited to rural and remote areas. Speculation was that it was seasonal and spiked off at the time of year people would go into the forests and harvest edible caterpillars. It was never a problem in the populated areas until recently.
They called it monkeypox but it's supposedly mostly carried by rodents.
There have been outbreaks before, but they say this outbreak is unprecedented. Experts are saying that because of how it's spreading, they suspect multiple transmission routes.