An unusual type of smallpox spread in Europe that kept the continent on alert, the so-calledmonkeypoxSo far, there are 12 confirmed cases, and 20 more cases are still under investigation, according to the Spanish newspaper “El Mundo”.
The newspaper pointed out that Portugal joined the United Kingdom and confirmed 5 cases of “monkeypox”, which was first discovered in 1970 in the Republic of the Congo.
At the same time, the Portuguese added 15 suspected cases, and in Spain, 8 more cases appeared, and the outbreak of the disease has kept many European countries on alert since the first cases were discovered last Sunday.
What is monkeypox?
And according to what was reported by various international media, “monkeypox” is a zoonotic disease, that is, transmitted from animals, in this case from monkeys..
The newspaper pointed out that it is an unusual viral infection whose cases are usually associated with West Africa.
According to Spanish media, the host of the pathogen belongs to the family orthopoxvirus a characteristic of rodents, which can transmit the virus to monkeys and then to humans.
Infection occurs when a healthy person comes into contact with fluids from an infected person, which may be in the form of secretions that produce lesions caused by the disease or through thick droplets of saliva, and at the same time, transmission from animals to humans can occur when contact with infected animals or contaminated meat.
According to information provided by the World Health Organization, the lethality of the disease ranges from 1% to 10%, which leads to deaths among the youngest, and so far, no cases have been recorded in other countries or in Latin America, while no deaths have been confirmed.
It is worth noting that at the beginning of this week, the British Health Safety Agency said that the number of people infected with monkeypox among the British population increased to 3 people within one week.