Monkeypox is a virus that frequently infects people in DR Congo, Nigeria and other parts of Central and West Africa, causing an eruption of sores and other symptoms in the disease that can last 2–4 weeks.
Authorities in Spain and Portugal announced on Wednesday that they had detected about 32 suspected cases of monkeypox, days after Britain reported new cases, prompting concerns that parts of Europe may have an undetected transmission.
Monkeypox is a virus that frequently infects people in DR Congo, Nigeria and other parts of Central and West Africa, causing an eruption of sores and other symptoms in the disease that can last 2–4 weeks. The condition is not particularly fatal but is estimated to have a mortality rate of up to 10%. Overall, there were five confirmed and 20 suspected cases in Portugal, eight suspected cases in Spain and seven in the UK.
On Tuesday, the World Health Organization said it coordinated with Britain, which has found cases with no travel history to Africa, to investigate the outbreak. The virus has an incubation period of usually 6-13 days and causes fever, headache, muscle aches, back pain, swollen lymph nodes, restlessness, tiredness and a general feeling of rash.
The virus spreads through close contact, both in the spillover of animal hosts and, less commonly, between humans. It was first found in monkeys in 1958, hence the name, although rodents are now seen as the primary source of transmission.
This time the transmission is puzzling experts, as many of the cases in the United Kingdom – nine as of May 18 – have no known links to each other. Only the first case reported on May 6 had recently travelled to Nigeria.
As such, experts have warned of widespread transmission if cases go unreported. The alert from the UK’s Health Protection Agency also highlighted that recent issues were mainly among men who identified themselves as gay, bisexual or men who had sex with men and alerted those groups—advised to stay. The World Health Organization (WHO) said that scientists will now sequence the viruses to see if they are linked.