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LISBON – Portuguese authorities announced on Wednesday that they have identified five cases of a rare monkeypox infection and Spanish health services are testing eight potential cases after Britain put Europe ready for the virus.
The five Portuguese patients, out of 20 suspected cases, are stable. They are all men and all live in the Lisbon area and the Tagus Valley, Portuguese health authorities said.
European health authorities have been monitoring every outbreak since Britain reported its first case of monkeypox on May 7 and has since found six more in the country.
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None of the eight alleged cases in Spain has yet been confirmed, the Spanish Ministry of Health said in a statement on Wednesday.
Monkeypox is a rare viral infection similar to human measles, although milder, first reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the 1970s. The number of cases in West Africa has increased over the last decade.
Symptoms include fever, headache and skin rashes that start in the face and spread to the rest of the body.
It is not particularly contagious among people, Spanish health authorities said, and most infected people recover within a few weeks, although severe cases have been reported.
Four of the cases found in the UK identify themselves as gay, bisexual or other men who have sex with men, the UK Health Security Agency said, adding evidence that there may be community transmission.
The British agency called on men who are gay and bisexual to be aware of any unusual rashes or lesions and to contact the sexual health service immediately.
The Spanish Ministry of Health and the Portuguese Health Service DGS did not release any information on the sexual orientation of patients with monkeypox or suspected patients.
Both sides sent signals to health professionals to identify more possible cases. (Report by Patricia Rua in Lisbon and Cristina Tikjaer in Madrid; edited by Inti Landauro and Alison Williams)
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