The United States and Europe have detected dozens of suspected or confirmed cases of monkeypox since the beginning of this month of May, which raises fears that the disease, endemic in some areas of Africa, is expanding, health authorities reported Thursday.
Canada was the latest country to report that it is investigating more than a dozen suspected cases of the disease.after Spain and Portugal detected more than 40 cases between possible and verified.
Britain confirmed nine cases since May 6, and The United States certified on Wednesday the firsta man from the state of Massachusetts who had tested positive for the virus after visiting Canada.
For its part, Sweden reported the first case detected in that country where the Public Health Agency confirmed that “one case of monkeypox was confirmed in the Stockholm region”.
The disease, from which most people recover within weeks and which has only been fatal in rare cases, has infected thousands of people in parts of central and western Africa in recent years, but is extremely rare in Europe. and North Africa, indicated the AFP agency.
World Health Organization (WHO) reported last Tuesday that it works in coordination with the British and European health authorities on the new outbreaks, and indicated that they are investigating that many of the reported cases are in people who identify themselves as homosexual, bisexual or men who have sex with men.
“We are seeing transmission between men who have sex with men”WHO Deputy Director-General Ibrahima Socé Fall said at the press conference, adding that “this is new information that we need to investigate properly to better understand the dynamics of local transmission in the UK and other countries. “.
Through a statement, the United Kingdom Health Security Agency (UKHSA) reported that the first case in Great Britain was identified in a person who had traveled to Nigeria, but subsequent cases occurred -possibly- through the community spread,
In this regard, the UKHSA noted that monkeypox had not previously been characterized as a sexually transmitted disease, stressing that “it can be transmitted by direct contact during sexual intercourse.”
“Anyone, regardless of sexual orientation, can spread monkeypox through contact with bodily fluids, monkeypox sores, or shared objects (such as clothing and bedding) that have been contaminated with fluids or sores from a person with monkey pox”they pointed out from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the United States, through a statement.
The CDC also added that household disinfectants can kill the virus on surfaces.
The symptoms
Its symptoms include fever, muscle aches, and swollen lymph nodes, before causing a chickenpox-like rash on the face and bodyexplained the US agency.
According to the CDC, there had been no reported cases of monkeypox for 40 years before it re-emerged in Nigeria in 2017.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), monkeypox “It is a rare disease that occurs mainly in remote areas of central and western Africa, near tropical forests, that is transmitted to people by various wild animals, such as rodents and monkeys, and that has limited secondary spread through of person-to-person transmission.
Its fatality rate is generally between 1 and 10%, and most deaths occur in the younger age groups.
The WHO recognized that “Although there is no treatment or vaccine for this disease, previous smallpox vaccination has been very effective in preventing it“.
