The day after the announcement of the first death in the country of a person infected with the virus, the Spanish Ministry of Health reports that a second person has died.
“Of the 3,750 patients (…)120 were hospitalized and two died”said the ministry’s health emergency and alert coordination center in its latest report published on Saturday, without specifying the date of this second death.
The ministry explained that it was “two young men” reached “monkey pox” and that studies were underway to have more“epidemiological information” on these two cases. This would be the second death in Europe, the third outside Africa.
The Spanish Ministry of Health announced on Friday July 29 the death of a person suffering from monkeypox. This death was considered the first ever recorded in Europe of a patient infected with the disease.
A 41-year-old man with monkeypox has also died in Brazil, the first death from the disease outside Africa and the sixth overall, local authorities said on Friday. That man “was being followed in hospital for other serious clinical conditions”said the health secretariat of the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais (Southeast) in a press release.
The patient, who local media said had serious immunity issues, died at Eduardo de Menezes Hospital in Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais.
“Mortality remains very low”
“It is important to point out that he had serious comorbidities so as not to cause panic in the population. Mortality [liée à cette maladie] remains very low »had declared the health secretary of Minas Gerais, Fabio Baccheretti, who explained that the patient was undergoing treatment for cancer.
According to the Ministry of Health, Brazil has recorded nearly 1,000 cases of monkeypox, most of them in the states of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, also located in the south-east of the country. The first case was detected on June 10, in a man who had traveled to Europe. Early symptoms of the disease include high fever, swollen lymph nodes, and a chickenpox-like rash.
The three cases – in Spain and Brazil – bring the global death toll since May to eight, with the first five reported in Africa, where the disease is endemic and was first detected in humans. in 1970. Most of the contamination is concentrated in Europe, where 70% of the 18,000 cases detected since the beginning of May are located and 25% in the Americas, according to the director of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
In most cases, the patients are men who have sex with men, relatively young, and living mainly in towns. The first symptoms are high fever, swollen lymph nodes and a rash similar to chickenpox. About 10% of cases require hospital admission to try to alleviate the pain patients are experiencing.
No vaccines for everyone
For the moment, the WHO stresses that there are not vaccines for everyone and therefore recommends that they be administered as a priority to those most at risk, to the sick, as well as to caregivers and researchers. .
The WHO triggered the highest level of alert, the public health emergency of international concern, on July 23 to step up the fight against monkeypox. On Saturday, Catherine Smallwood, Emergency Manager for WHO Europe said that, “Given the continued spread of monkeypox in Europe, we expect more deaths.”
The goal should be “to quickly interrupt the transmission of the virus in Europe and put a stop to this epidemic”insists Mme Smallwood, who points out, however, that in most cases the disease heals on its own, without the need for treatment.
“The reporting of monkeypox-related deaths does not change our assessment of the outbreak in Europe. We know that although self-limiting in most cases, monkeypox can lead to serious complications.”she noted.
–
