Indian authorities announced on Monday the death of a man infected with monkeypox, who had recently returned from the United Arab Emirates. It might be the first fatal case of the disease in Asia.
The Ministry of Health in the state of Kerala in southern India said tests on the 22-year-old victim who died on July 30 following testing positive “show the man had smallpox. monkey”.
On July 24, the WHO triggered the highest level of alert, the Public Health Emergency of International Concern (USPPI) to strengthen the fight once morest monkeypox, also called monkeypox.
The Indian victim died a week following being hospitalized on his return from the United Arab Emirates. It was not yet clear whether the cause of death was monkeypox.
Two deaths in Spain
“The young man had no symptoms of monkeypox. He was admitted to hospital with symptoms of encephalitis and fatigue,” Kerala Health Minister Veena George said on Sunday as quoted by the Indian Express newspaper.
Twenty people identified as being at high risk were placed under observation, she said, including relatives, friends and medical personnel, who may have been in contact with the victim.
India has recorded at least four cases of the disease, the first of which was on July 15 in another man who returned to Kerala following a trip to the United Arab Emirates. Spain announced two monkeypox-related deaths last week, the first in Europe, and Brazil one.
However, it is unclear whether monkeypox was the cause of these three deaths. Autopsies are still underway in Spain. In Brazil, the authorities claim that the deceased patient had other serious pathologies.
In Peru, an HIV-positive patient who had abandoned his HIV treatment and was infected with monkeypox died on Monday. “He did not die of monkeypox but of sepsis” caused by a weakened immune system, said the director of the Dos de Mayo National Hospital in Lima, Eduardo Farfan, on local radio.
West African variant
The first analyzes carried out on the man who died on Saturday in India showed that he was carrying the West African variant of the virus and further tests have yet to be carried out. According to the Kerala Ministry of Health, the family did not notify doctors until July 30, the day of the death, of the results of the test carried out in Dubai on the 19th.
165 passengers were on the same flight as him from the Emirates, but none of them had close contact with the patient, the ministry added. Since May, the first five monkeypox-related deaths worldwide have been 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.
The WHO Regional Office for Europe also predicts an increase in the number of deaths linked to monkeypox, even if it stresses that severe complications remain rare and very often the disease is cured by itself. even, without requiring treatment.
“Put a Stop”
The aim must be “to rapidly interrupt the transmission of the virus in Europe and bring this epidemic to a halt”, said Catherine Smallwood, an emergency manager at WHO Europe. The first symptoms are high fever, swollen lymph nodes and a rash similar to chickenpox.
For now, the WHO stresses that there are not vaccines for everyone and therefore recommends prioritizing those who are most at risk, those who are sick and those who treat or make them. of research.
This article has been published automatically. Sources: ats / afp
