This 1997 image was created during an investigation into a monkeypox outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
The Spanish Ministry of Health confirmed the second death due to monkeypox in the country this Saturday and they are already there three victims outside Africa, where the disease arose.
It’s about a 31 year old man who was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit of the Reina Sofía University Hospital, in the Spanish city of Córdoba.
According to health sources, the specialists took a series of samples during the autopsy that are being studied to determine if the cause of his death was meningoencephalitis or another pathology.
His death is the third to be produced outside the African continent – where the first cases of the virus were detected – and the second in Spain, which already has almost 4,300 cases of monkeypox, according to the latest data from the National Epidemiological Surveillance Network (RENAVE).
The first victim was released on Friday in the Valencian Community and was also a young man, according to the EFE news agency.
As in the recent case, the exact reasons for this death are still being investigated, although indications point to encephalitis associated with the infection caused by the virus.
On the same day, the death of a monkeypox infected patient in Brazil was reported, which was the first outside of Africa.
The deceased person has similar characteristics to the cases already mentioned: he too was young, a 41-year-old man, who was facing the disease in hospital.
An electron microscope image of mature monkeypox virions. AP photo
“The man who suffered from monkeypox and was under observation in hospital for other serious medical conditions died on Thursday,” the health secretary of the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais said in a statement.
The patient, who according to local media was battling cancer and had severe immune problems, died at the Eduardo de Menezes hospital in Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais.
For its part, there are already 19 cases in Argentina, of which 17 are imported. The last confirmed infection was in Santa Fe last Thursday, when they reported the first infection in the province of “a patient with a travel history who records contact with a positive case in another country”.
WHO has declared an international health emergency due to the epidemic
The decision was announced last Saturday at a press conference by WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, two days after an emergency committee with experts on this disease met to analyze the possible statement, which will force networks of health authorities nationals to increase preventive measures.
This committee had chosen not to declare the emergency at a first meeting held in June, when there were 3,000 cases.
Also on this occasion, according to Tedros, there was not a complete consensus among the experts, but the director general decided to declare the emergency given the high and growing number of cases in various regions of the entire planet.
With information from agencies
DB
Source: Clarin
