The Spanish Ministry of Health announced on Friday the death of a person suffering from monkeypox, considered to be the first death ever recorded in Europe of a patient infected with this disease.
In Spain, one of the countries with the most cases in the world, 4,298 people have been infected and one has died, the ministry’s Center for Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies said in its statement. Friday’s report, without specifying either the cause or the date of this death.
Shortly before, Brazil had reported the death on its soil of a 41-year-old man carrying monkeypox, the first death linked to this disease outside Africa and the sixth in the world.
A man “suffering from monkeypox who was being followed in hospital for other serious clinical conditions died on Thursday,” the health secretariat of the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais said in a statement.
The patient, who according to local media had serious immunity problems, died at Eduardo de Menezes Hospital in Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais.
“It is important to point out that he had serious comorbidities, so as not to cause panic in the population. Mortality [liée à cette maladie] remains very low,” said Minas Gerais Health Secretary Fábio Baccheretti, who explained that the patient was undergoing cancer treatment.
According to the Ministry of Health, Brazil has recorded nearly 1,000 cases of monkeypox, most of them in the states of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, also located in the south-east of the country.
The first case was detected on June 10, in a man who had traveled to Europe.
Early symptoms of the disease include high fever, swollen lymph nodes, and a chickenpox-like rash.
On Saturday, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued the highest level of alert, the Public Health Emergency of International Concern, to step up the fight against monkeypox.
According to the WHO, more than 18,000 cases of monkeypox have been detected worldwide since the beginning of May outside endemic areas in Africa.
The disease has been reported in 78 countries and 70% of cases are concentrated in Europe and 25% in the Americas, the organization’s director, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on Wednesday.
About 10% of cases require hospital admission to try to alleviate the pain that patients are experiencing.