The number of confirmed cases of monkeypox in the world has reached 219 outside countries where the disease is endemic, according to a report released on Wednesday May 25 by the European Union (EU) agency in charge of diseases. “Most of the cases are young men, identifying themselves as men who have sex with men. There were no fatalities.”specifies the European agency based in Stockholm.
Apart from the eleven African countries where this rare disease is endemic, three countries currently concentrate most of the confirmed cases: the United Kingdom, the first country where unusual cases were detected in early May (71 cases), Spain ( 51) and Portugal (37), according to the ECDC. Europe concentrates most of the cases with 191 cases, including 118 in EU countries. Canada (15), the United States (9), Australia (2), Israel (1) and the United Arab Emirates (1) are the six non-European countries with cases considered confirmed. Suspicious cases are not counted in the report.
The total number of cases identified by the ECDC has almost quintupled since its first score of May 20, when the agency counted 38 cases. On Monday, in its first risk assessment, the ECDC had however considered that the probability of contagion in the general population was ” very weak “ but that she was on the other hand “high” in people with multiple sexual partners. On the same day, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed a situation ” atypical “ but deemed possible to « stopper » this transmission of the disease between humans.
The disease, a less dangerous cousin of smallpox, eradicated for forty years, is endemic in eleven countries in West Africa and in Central Africa. It first results in a high fever and quickly evolves into a rash, with the formation of scabs.