Today, Thursday, the health authorities announced the discovery of the first confirmed case of monkeypox in Sweden, after a series of cases of this disease in Europe and North America that are usually endemic to West Africa.
• Also read: Monkeypox: a dozen suspected cases in Montreal
• Also read: Monkeypox: about 40 suspected or confirmed cases in Spain and Portugal
“A case of monkeypox has been confirmed in a person in the Stockholm region,” the Swedish Public Health Agency said in a statement.
The authorities explain that the infected person “is not seriously ill, but has received treatment,” noting that they do not yet know where and how the infection occurred.
And she explains that the authority is “now checking with the regional centers for infection control to see if there are more cases in Sweden.”
This uncommon illness usually presents with fever, muscle aches, swollen lymph nodes, and a rash on the hands and face, similar to chickenpox.
The European Union’s agency responsible for diseases and epidemics said that the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) plans to publish the first risk assessment report “early next week”.
The agency, which says it is “monitoring the situation closely”, recommends that “suspected cases be promptly isolated, examined and reported”.
Dozens of suspected or confirmed cases of monkeypox have been detected since the beginning of May in Europe and North America, raising fears that the disease is starting to spread.
The UK, which reported the first cases, detected from May 6, brought the total number of infected people to nine on Wednesday evening.
On Wednesday, Spain, Portugal, Canada and the United States, in turn, reported that they had detected monkeypox, or what appeared to be, on their territory.
The authorities want to be generally reassuring, and therefore confirm in Spain and Portugal that the disease is not highly contagious in humans.
However, the increase in apparent outbreaks is worrying, and the World Health Organization said on Monday it was paying close attention to the fact that some cases in the UK appeared to have been transmitted within the LGBTQ community.
