Germany, France, Belgium confirm first cases of monkeypox
The first case in Germany was registered in Bavaria on Thursday, according to the Bundeswehr Institute of Microbiology, a military research facility of the German Armed Forces.
“The Institute for Microbiology of the German Armed Forces in Munich has now also detected the monkey pox virus beyond doubt for the first time in Germany on 19 May 2022 in a patient with characteristic skin lesions,” read a statement from the medical service.
The patient is a 26-year-old man from Brazil who had been traveling in Germany, according to a statement from the Bavarian Health Ministry. The man had traveled through Portugal and Spain before entering Germany and had visited Düsseldorf and Frankfurt before reaching Munich, where he had been for around a week, according to the statement.
German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said Friday it was only a “matter of time” before monkey pox made its way to the country, according to the state broadcaster Deutsche Welle. Lauterbach said he was confident that an outbreak could be contained on a virus that does not appear to transmit easily if authorities act quickly.
“We will now analyze the virus more closely and examine whether it involves a more contagious variant,” Lauterbach said, according to Reuters.
France’s Health Ministry confirmed the country’s first monkey pox case on Friday in the Île-de-France region, which includes Paris. A 29-year-old man is not in serious condition but is self-isolating at home, the agency said in a statement. Although the man had not recently traveled to a country where monkey pox is already spreading, health authorities have launched a full investigation into the case, according to the French Health Ministry.
In Belgium, officials at the Universitair Ziekenhuis Leuven hospital said they had confirmed two cases of monkey pox in the country with whole-genome sequencing.
“People who recognize injuries such as the one in this photo should contact their doctor,” virologist Marc Van Ranst wrote in a tweet on Friday morning, sharing photographs of monkeypox’s signature lesions.
A spokesperson for Belgium’s Agency for Care and Health told Reuters that the first infected person had been diagnosed in Antwerp. The person was not seriously ill and was now in isolation with their partner. Van Ranst wrote on Twitter that the second patient was a man who had been diagnosed in Flemish Brabant.
Flemish broadcaster VRTNWS reported Friday that though the two patients were diagnosed in different areas of the country, they may have attended the same party.
Belgian Minister of Health Frank Vandenbroucke said that the government was watching the situation closely.
“Does that mean that we now have to fear a major outbreak here? We don’t think so,” Vandenbroucke told VRTNWS. “But as always you have to use caution and foresight.”
Though monkey pox is not often fatal, its spread to a dozen countries in Australia, Europe and North American has surprised virologists as many appeared to have no links to its traditional base in central and West Africa. The disease is not known to easily spread among humans, instead usually passing to humans through contact with animals.