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ARCHIVED - Monkeypox: 55 suspected cases in 10 regions of Spain
Spain's Ministry of Health has confirmed 34 of these cases as the country leads infections in Europe
Cases of monkeypox in Spain have risen to 55 suspected infections with 34 of these confirmed on Monday Friday 23, amongst the highest in Europe.
The confirmed cases have been detected in Madrid and linked to a 'sauna', a term used in Spain to describe establishments popular with gay men. The regional health chief Enrique Ruiz Escudero said: "The Public Health Department will carry out an even more detailed analysis... to control contagion, cut the chains of transmission and try to mitigate the transmission of this virus as much as possible."
The remainder of the suspected monkepox viral infections have been reported in: Andalusia (5), Malaga province (5), Galicia (3), Canary Islands (2), Basque Country (1) Catalonia (2), the Valencia region (1), Granada (1) and Extremadura (1).
In the latter autonomous region, the suspected case is that of a woman, but there is no evidence that the patient has any link with any of the confirmed positive cases so far and her symptoms "are not fully compatible with the disease", so could be ruled out in the next 24 hours.
The Community of Madrid is now studying whether those confirmed in the region travelled to the Canary Islands and could have been infected at private parties attended by foreign nationals from countries such as the UK, where monkeypox cases have increased in recent days.
"That is what we are looking for. If there is a link between the two outbreaks, we have to assess the dates of when the party took place in the Canary Islands, which is where it seems to have started, and also in the Madrid area.
"Now it's down to epidemiological surveillance; we are looking for links and above all trying establish traceability to allow us to stop the transmission of the virus," stressed Ruiz Escudero.
The UK confirmed on Sunday that it is already recording daily monkeypox infections unrelated to any travel to West Africa, where the disease is endemic, a British health and safety agency official said.
"We are finding cases that have no identified contact with an individual from West Africa, which is what we have seen previously in this country," said UK Health Safety Agency (UKHSA) chief medical adviser Susan Hopkins. "We are detecting more cases every day," she added during an interview with the BBC.
Hopkins confirmed that the outbreak is concentrated "in urban areas, mainly among gay or bisexual men", and assured "the risk to the general population remains extremely low at the moment, although people need to be vigilant".
Closer to home, the head of the ICU at San Sebastain's Donostia Hospital, Felix Zubia, said that monkeypox "has created alarm, but will not cause a pandemic".
He believes that the hysteria surrounding the disease is due to the "fear and suspicion" that Covid-19 has caused, but that it is more of a "stir" than a real risk.
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