Monkeypox cases confirmed in Germany, France, Belgium, as European countries
Monkeypox, a sometimes-serious illness that can be passed to animals and humans, is usually found in Central and West Africa. But the virus has now been seen far across from the continent. Although the virus is not often fatal and does not spread as easily as coronavirus, the new monkeypox cases are raising pressing questions about how patients far and wide appear to have been infected.
On Friday, a WHO committee called the Strategic and Technical Advisory Group on Infectious Hazards with Pandemic and Epidemic Potential is due to meet to discuss the cases. WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic said that WHO was convening meetings “on a daily basis” with experts from affected countries and others in the global health community.
The move came as Germany, France and Belgium also confirmed their first cases of monkeypox, joining a growing list of countries where cases of the rare viral illness have popped up in recent days.
The first case in Germany was registered in Bavaria on Thursday, according to the Bundeswehr Institute of Microbiology, a military research facility of the German Armed Forces.
“The Institute for Microbiology of the German Armed Forces in Munich has now also detected the monkeypox virus beyond doubt for the first time in Germany on 19 May 2022 in a patient with characteristic skin lesions,” read a statement from the medical service.
The patient is a 26-year-old man from Brazil who had been traveling in Germany, according to a statement from the Bavarian Health Ministry. The man had traveled through Portugal and Spain before entering Germany and had visited Düsseldorf and Frankfurt before reaching Munich, where he had been for around a week, according to the statement.
German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said Friday it was only a “matter of time” before monkeypox made its way to the country, according to the state broadcaster Deutsche Welle. Lauterbach said he was confident that an outbreak could be contained on a virus that does not appear to transmit easily if authorities act quickly.
“We will now analyze the virus more closely and examine whether it involves a more contagious variant,” Lauterbach said, according to Reuters.
France’s Health Ministry confirmed the country’s first monkeypox case on Friday in the Île-de-France region, which includes Paris. A 29-year-old man is not in serious condition but is self-isolating at home, the agency said in a…
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