Smallpox monkeys, WHO: 3,200 confirmed infections, one dead

“Just over 6 weeks ago, WHO was informed of a family cluster of 3 monkeypox cases” in the UK, “with no recent trips out” of the country. “Since then, more than 3,200 confirmed cases and one death have been reported to WHO from 48 countries including Nigeria, and in 5 WHO regions.” Thus the director general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, took stock of the anomalous cases of Monkeypox virus, at the meeting of the committee called to decide whether the infection should be considered a public health emergency of international importance ( Pheic). The response could come today. Read also The infections recorded in the most recently affected countries “continue to occur mainly among men who have sex with men and who have reported recent sexual relations with new or multiple partners”, underlined the Dg, highlighting that “the transmission from person to person is ongoing and is probably underestimated. In Nigeria – Tedros remarked – the percentage of women affected is much higher than elsewhere and it is essential to better understand how the disease is spreading “. The WHO number one then recalled that “monkeypox has been circulating and killing in Africa for decades.” So far this year alone, “nearly 1,500 suspected cases and around 70 deaths have been reported in Central Africa, mainly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but also in the Central African Republic and Cameroon. Few of these cases are confirmed and little is known about them. circumstances “in which they occurred. “Although the epidemiology and the viral clade in these cases may be different, it is a situation that” for the WHO DG “cannot be ignored”.