Reports: WHO alarms Europe over monkeypox outbreak

The World Health Organization has announced an emergency meeting to discuss the rapidly growing monkeypox outburst after France, Germany, and Belgium confirmed their first cases. 

They join the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Sweden, Canada, Australia and the United States in reporting a disease endemic to parts of Africa.

According to the reports, Monkeypox cases in Europe have now crossed 100. Data collected by an Oxford University academic says that number is closer to 130.

List of the countries that recorded the cases with Monkeypox: 

> The French monkeypox patient is from the country’s Ile-de-France region, including Paris. However, he had not recently returned from a country where the virus is circulating, France’s health authorities said Friday.

> In Belgium, Flemish broadcaster VRTNWS said both patients were at the same party in an undisclosed location. The first person was diagnosed in Antwerp (not the place of residence) but is not seriously ill; the individual and their partner have been isolated. A second case is a man from the Flemish Brabant region. He, too, is not seriously ill.

> The first case from Germany was confirmed by the Munich Institute for Microbiology of the German Armed Forces. German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said: “We will now analyse the virus more closely and examine whether it involves a more contagious variant.”

> Spanish authorities reported 14 confirmed cases on Friday, taking the total number to 21. There are another 20 suspected cases – 19 in the central region of Madrid and one in the Canary Islands, Reuters quoted health authorities.

> The US Centers for Disease Control is tracking six more possible monkeypox cases. All were in close contact with a fellow traveller who had shown symptoms on a flight from Nigeria to the United Kingdom earlier this month.

> The US reported its first case in 2022 – a Massachusetts man who recently travelled to Canada in April and returned this month. Last year, Texas and Maryland reported a case in people who had travelled to Nigeria.

> Portugal has 23 cases, with at least ten others tracked. A spokesperson for the country’s public health group on monkeypox said “the health authority… is worried” and stressed the need to break transmission chains.

> The UK Health Security Agency said Friday it had detected 11 new infections taking the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 20. The UKHSA has warned gay and bisexual men after the World Health Organization this week said: “We are seeing transmission among men having sex with men.”

> Canada has two confirmed cases so far. However, authorities in Quebec province are investigating 17 suspected cases. Sweden has one case, while Italy reported two more Friday to total three.

> Australia has two confirmed monkeypox cases – one in Sydney and another in Melbourne. Like the vast majority of other cases, both patients are male.