A second person with monkeypox has died in Spain, according to the Ministry of Health.
A second person with monkeypox has died in Spain, the Ministry of Health said on Saturday, the day after the announcement of the first death in the country of a person infected with this virus. “Among the 3,750 patients (…) 120 cases were hospitalized and two died,” said the Ministry’s Center for Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies in its latest report published on Saturday, without specifying the date of this second death. .
These are the first deaths in Europe of people infected with monkeypox. Friday, Brazil had announced a death, without it being known each time if the virus is indeed the cause of these deaths. A total of seven deaths have been recorded worldwide since May, with the first five reported in Africa, where the disease is endemic and was first detected in humans in 1970.
Contacted by AFP, the ministry did not provide further details, specifying that these were two patients with “monkey pox” and referring to “analyzes that may take place later to be able to determine the cause of death”. In Spain, one of the countries with the most cases in the world, 4,298 people have been infected according to the latest data from the Center for Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies.
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. On July 24, the WHO triggered the highest level of alert, the Public Health Emergency of International Concern (USPPI), to strengthen the fight against monkey pox, also called monkeypox.