Spain and Brazil report first monkeypox-related deaths outside Africa
Spain reported its first monkeypox-related death on Friday, in what is thought to be Europe’s first death from the disease and only the second outside Africa in the current outbreak.
Brazil reported earlier on Friday the first monkeypox-related death outside the African continent in the current wave of the disease.
According to a World Health Organization (WHO) report from July 22, only five deaths had been reported worldwide, all in the African region.
The WHO last Saturday declared the rapidly spreading outbreak a global health emergency, its highest level of alert.
In its latest report, the Spanish Health Ministry said 4,298 cases had been confirmed in the country. Of the 3,750 patients it had information on, it said 120 had been hospitalised – accounting for 3.2 per cent – and one had died, without providing further details.
A spokesperson for the Health Ministry declined to give further details on the deceased person.
In Brazil, a 41-year-old man died of monkeypox, local authorities said on Friday.
The man, who local media said had serious immune system problems, died in Belo Horizonte, the capital of the southeastern Minas Gerais state, on Thursday.
He “was receiving hospital treatment for other serious conditions,” the state health ministry said in a statement.
Brazil’s health ministry has recorded close to 1,000 monkeypox cases, mostly in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro states, which are also in the country’s southeast.
The first case was detected on June 10 in a man who had travelled to Europe.
Early signs of the disease include a high fever, swollen lymph glands and a chickenpox-like rash.
The WHO last Saturday declared the monkeypox outbreak a global health emergency.
According to the WHO, more than 18,000 cases have been detected throughout the world outside Africa since the beginning of May.
It has been detected in 78 countries with 70 per cent of cases found in Europe and 25 per cent in the Americas, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday.
Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK