The list of countries with confirmed cases of monkeypox thickened this Friday, after France and Germany reported their first infections of this disease native to central and western Africa and which continues to spread throughout Europe.
Italy too confirmed three cases of monkeypox, after reporting the first contagion in a young man from the Canary Islands. Spain, for its part, reported a total of 28 cases of non-human smallpox, seven of them known as “monkey” smallpox, and another 21 still pending of the virus sequencing results.
A first case of monkeypox was recorded Thursday in France, in a 29-year-old man who had not traveled to a country where the virus circulates, health authorities announced.
The palms of a patient affected by monkeypox. Photo: REUTERS
The man is isolated at his home in the Paris region. The authorities identified his contacts to inform them about how to act to limit the spread of the virus.
The microbiology institute of the German armed forces said for its part that it had detected the virus in a patient who developed skin lesionsone of its symptoms.
More cases in Italy and Spain
The Infectious Disease Surveillance Service of Lazio, the Rome region, confirmed that the other two cases that were being studied have also tested positive and they had had contact with the so-called patient zero that was confirmed this Thursday and who had spent a few days in the Canary Islands.
“The three people are in good health, only one has had a short-term fever and all of them have swollen lymph nodes and have painas well as the appearance of a limited number of small localized skin pustules,” added Francesco Vaia, general director of the Lazaro Spallanzani Institute, where the three patients are hospitalized.
The director of the center added that the patients are being treated with symptomatic therapy but added that “there are antiviral drugs available at the Institute that could be used experimentally if a specific therapy is needed.”
Go specify that “cannot be defined as a sexually transmitted disease or that affects homosexuals”. “At the moment it is identified as a very close contact disease. It’s not right to stigmatize, but you have to understand this disease well,” he said.
For their part, sources from the Carlos III Health Institute in Madrid confirmed that it will not be known until next Wednesday if the 21 doubtful cases of monkeypox in Spain are actually from that disease.
The analyzes have definitively corroborated that the first seven cases that tested positive last Wednesday in a partial sequencing are of monkeypox (technical English name for monkeypox).
Origin and symptoms of monkeypox
The monkeypox is a rare disease originally from Africa. The virus can be transmitted by direct contact with broken skin or mucous membranes of a sick person.
It can also be transmitted through fluids or contact with the environment of the sick person, such as bedding, clothes, dishes, bath towels, etc.
Since May 14, cases, with no direct link to travel to Africa, have been confirmed in the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Sweden, and Italy, as well as in the United States and Canada.
Its symptoms include fever, muscle aches, and swollen lymph nodesbefore causing a chickenpox-like rash on the face and body.
The disease, usually benign, is overcome after two or three weeks. The virus, which has infected thousands of people in central and western Africa in recent years, is not usually fatal.
Fuente: AFP