A 41-year-old man who suffers from lymphoma and has a weakened immune system, died from monkeypox disease on 29 July, 2022 in Brazil.
This marked the first death from monkeypox outside Africa.
Later, the same day, a young man died from the disease in Spain: the first monkeypox death in Europe.
The following day, 30 July, 2022 another young man also died of monkeypox in Spain.
On June 23, 2022 after the emergency committee of experts meeting, WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, declared monkeypox a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).
This is the highest level of alert by the WHO.
The last time WHO issued a global health emergency was in January, 2020 on Covid-19.
The rapid rate of spread of monkeypox may have forced WHO to take the decision.
By 28 July, 2022 there were 18,000 monkeypox cases confirmed in 78 countries, with five deaths in Africa.
By the beginning of August, 2022 Africa recorded another death from the disease followed a fatality in Kerala, India.
The death toll worldwide from this latest outbreak by 6 August, 2022 is 10.
The disease is endemic in parts of Central and West Africa.
WHO is concerned that the disease is spreading fast especially in Europe, outside the endemic tropical areas.
After the virus was found in seminal fluids of patients in Italy and Germany, the possibility of it being sexually transmitted became a hypothesis.
This is particularly so, when there is little evidence of travels by the patients to known endemic regions of Africa.
However, the presence of such viral DNA does not prove that monkeypox is a sexually transmitted disease.
This is because the disease can spread through close skin-to-skin contact during sex.
An increase in the rate of infection among the gay population in Europe also caused medical concern.
In a study of 152 monkeypox patients in the UK, 99% were gay men who have sex with other men.
Medical experts however, advise against stigmatization as the evidence is still scanty.
Monkeypox was first discovered in 1958 in monkeys used for research in Denmark.
The first human infection was in Democratic Republic of Congo in 1970.
photo: indiatimes, bbc
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