People with monkeypox symptoms may want to avoid contact with their pets for three weeks to avoid infecting animals, the U.K. Health Security Agency said Friday.

Why it matters: UKHSA says the spread of monkeypox in the U.K. may put pet rodents — such as gerbils, hamsters or rodents — at risk of the virus.

"The worry is the virus could get into domestic animals and essentially ping-pong between them and humans," Lawrence Young, a virologist at the University of Warwick, told BBC News.

What they're saying: "The risk posed is therefore to the non-infected human contacts or in-contact peridomestic or wild rodents," UKHSA said.

Yes, but: U.K. health officials said the risk of passing monkeypox to a pet is low, per The Guardian. In fact, the risk may be limited to certain species, like rodents.

Be smart: There aren't many monkeypox cases globally and transmission risk remains low, Axios' Eileen Drage O'Reilly reports. There have been nine U.S. cases confirmed so far.