Dusseldorf, Munich, Berlin After a first case in Munich, two infections with the monkeypox virus have now also been detected in Berlin. This was announced by the Senate Department for Health on Saturday. The condition of the two patients is stable. Contact persons are currently being investigated. It is not yet known which of the two known variants of the pathogen the patients suffer from.
The patient in Munich, in whom a monkeypox infection was confirmed for the first time in Germany, suffers from the milder West African variant. This was the result of the genome analysis of the pathogen at the Bundeswehr Institute for Microbiology, as the Bavarian Ministry of Health announced on Saturday. According to the Munich Clinic Schwabing on Friday, the patient was doing well.
The 26-year-old from Brazil traveled to Munich from Portugal via Spain and had previously stayed in Düsseldorf and Frankfurt am Main. According to the State Ministry of Health in North Rhine-Westphalia, there are indications “of possible contact between people and the monkeypox virus”.
A spokesman for the ministry told the German Press Agency on Saturday that these tips will be followed up. The State Center for Health is in close contact with the permanent working group of the competence and treatment centers for diseases caused by highly pathogenic pathogens at the Robert Koch Institute (RKI).
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Most of the cases currently under investigation are mild, according to Hans Kluge, regional director for Europe at the World Health Organization. According to information from Friday, cases are known in at least eight countries in the WHO region: apart from Germany, these are Spain, France, Italy, Belgium, Portugal, Sweden and Great Britain. Cases have also been confirmed in Australia, Canada and the USA – and thus in other regions of the world outside of Africa, from where the virus originates.
Transfers could accelerate through summer season
The recently detected infections are atypical because most of those affected have not traveled to West or Central Africa, where the disease is endemic, Kluges said in the statement. It is also striking that most of the infections initially discovered were found in homosexual men. The fact that the cases are found across Europe suggests that the virus has been passed on for a while.
Lauterbach is optimistic about containing monkeypox
Kluge fears that broadcasts could accelerate in the summer season with mass events, festivals and parties. The virus is currently being found in sexually active people, many of whom are unfamiliar with the symptoms.
The Spanish authorities are meanwhile investigating the suspicion that gay pride parties on the holiday island of Gran Canaria could have been a possible source of infection for the infections. This was reported by the newspaper “El País”, citing sources in the health sector. About 80,000 people from Spain and many other countries took part in the “Maspalomas Pride” from May 5 to 15, which was mainly attended by homosexuals, the newspaper reported.
Men from Italy, from Madrid and from the island of Tenerife, where the virus was detected, are said to have taken part in the celebrations. Intimate contacts are a possible transmission route for the virus. Authorities had already closed a sauna in Madrid on Friday because several men are said to have been infected there as well. As of Friday, 30 cases of monkeypox had been detected in Spain. There are also another 23 suspected cases.
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In Sweden, the government classified monkeypox as dangerous to the public after Thursday’s first confirmed case. “The classification makes it possible to take measures to prevent infection in order to prevent further spread,” explained Social Affairs Minister Lena Hallengren.
According to health authorities, the virus usually causes only mild symptoms, but can also have severe courses. In individual cases, fatal diseases are possible. The virus is mainly transmitted via direct contact or contact with contaminated materials.
The observed accumulation is already an epidemic – but it is “very unlikely that this epidemic will last long,” said Fabian Leendertz, founding director of the Helmholtz Institute for One Health (HIOH) in Greifswald and head of the project group Epidemiology of highly pathogenic Pathogens at the RKI. The cases can be narrowed down well via contact tracing. There are also drugs and effective vaccines that could be used.
The disease is named monkeypox after the pathogen was first detected in monkeys in a Danish laboratory in 1958. Experts suspect that the virus actually circulates in squirrels and rodents, while monkeys and humans are considered false hosts.
More: First case of monkeypox in Germany: what is known about symptoms, transmission and other cases