Four cases of monkeypox have now been confirmed in Ireland, according to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre.
It said this was not unexpected following the presence of cases in the UK and in many European countries.
The centre added that in each case, public health experts are following those who had close contact with the case while they were infectious.
The HPSC said that in order to maintain patient confidentiality, no further information about the cases will be provided.
The first case in Ireland was confirmed on Friday, 27 May. The second case was confirmed on Monday. Today, the HPSC announced that it had been notified of two further cases.
Over 500 cases of the virus have been confirmed in Europe, North America and many other countries in recent weeks.
The HPSC said that many countries have reported that the cases are predominantly, but not exclusively, in men who self-identify as gay, bisexual or other men who have sex with men.
Read more: All you need to know about monkeypox
Monkeypox - a less severe disease compared to its cousin smallpox - is endemic in 11 countries in West and Central Africa.
It spreads by a bite or direct contact with an infected animal's blood, meat or bodily fluids, and initial symptoms include a high fever before quickly developing into a rash.
People infected with it also get a chickenpox-like rash on their hands and face.
No treatment exists, but the symptoms usually clear up after two to four weeks, and it is not usually fatal.
Director of the National Virus Reference Laboratory Dr Cillian de Gascun has said it is "very difficult" to predict what is going to happen over the coming weeks, but that there will be more cases.
Speaking on RTÉ's Drivetime, Dr de Gascun said it was a good thing that all four cases in the Republic of Ireland were identified so quickly, as it means people are coming forward for testing and there is an awareness of what the symptoms are.
He said they know where all of the cases have come from, and they do not yet have any evidence of undetected community transmission of the virus in Ireland.
"Traditionally, monkeypox would not be considered anywhere near as infectious as Covid, which is a good thing," he said.
"One element that we would be concerned about is that we’ve never really seen an event like this before, so we’re looking at the virus to see if there’s any changes in the virus that might suggest that it’s behaving differently.
"Thankfully at this point, the sequence data that we have from colleagues overseas is that there’s no major change to the virus over the last number of years."
Dr de Gascun added that based on reports from around the world, the majority of cases have been quite mild.
