The Ministry of Health of the Government of the Canary Islands confirmed yesterday the first case of monkeypox in Gran Canaria, which corresponds to the young man whose case was detected last Thursday, May 19. The affected is in good condition and continues treatment at his home. This contagion, along with three of the four that are currently being analyzed, are linked to the celebration of Maspalomas Pride by Freedom at the beginning of the month, as highlighted yesterday by the Ministry of Health of the Government of the Canary Islands. The rest is not linked to said celebration, as they underline from said Ministry.
At the moment, the Coordinating Center for Alerts and Emergencies of the Ministry of Health has not communicated the results of the tests carried out at the National Center for Microbiology on the samples of the second suspected case of monkeypox detected last Friday in Tenerife. The young man is in good condition and continues treatment at his home. He had not traveled to Gran Canaria recently.
More cases
In the last few hours, the Canary Islands have reported three other probable cases, all in Gran Canaria. These correspond to three young men whose evolution is also favorable, following their process at home, except for one of them, who has been admitted for another pathology. All three were at the Maspalomas Pride by Freedom celebrations.
To these is added a suspicious case registered in Fuerteventura. He is a tourist of British origin who is in good health. This affected person had not traveled to Gran Canaria recently either.
Yesterday afternoon, Health rejected a case in Gran Canaria that had been classified as suspicious after analyzing the Epidemiological Survey and its clinical criteria by the General Directorate of Public Health.
«How tremendous it is that in certain forums they try to assimilate health problems with the sexuality of each one. He passed with HIV, and some repeat it with this monkey pox. Well no. It is not a disease of, it is of all. Let’s stop stigmatizing,” Amós García, head of Epidemiology of the Canary Health Service (SCS) and president of the Spanish Association of Vaccinology, posted on Twitter.
long exposure
The European Center for Disease Control and Prevention raised yesterday to 85 cases of monkeypox in eight European countries: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Sweden. The European body ensures that this disease “does not spread easily between people.” Person-to-person transmission occurs through close contact with infectious material from the skin lesions of an infected person; through respiratory droplets in prolonged face-to-face contact and through fomites.
However, they point to sex as the main cause of transmission: “The predominance of monkeypox cases diagnosed among men who have sex with men and the nature of the lesions that occur in some cases suggest that transmission occurred in this case during sexual intercourse.
They recommend isolating pets
The Minister of Health in Madrid, Enrique Ruiz Escudero, pointed out yesterday during an interview on Telemadrid that the cases of monkeypox that are linked to the celebration of Maspalomas Pride by Freedom would have been registered in the celebration of a private party in the south of Gran Canaria, not in the central acts of the event. From the Ministry of Health they remember that they are focused on analyzing the cases registered in the Islands and that, at the moment, only four would be linked to said celebration. Madrid already has more than thirty smallpox infections, three of them negative, since it adds almost forty suspected cases to be confirmed. “There is concern, because there are multifocal infections but there is no airborne transmission,” he pointed out.
The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) recommended yesterday to concentrate the focus on rapid identification of monkeypox cases, as well as management, contact tracing and notification. The director of the agency, Andrea Ammon, stressed that most have presented “mild” symptoms and that the probability of contagion for the general population is “very low.” Infected people should remain isolated until the scabs fall off and avoid close contact with immunosuppressed patients and pets, as well as sexual activity. Monkeypox can cause “severe disease” in certain population groups, such as children, pregnant women, and immunosuppressed people. “Further research is needed,” the ECDC noted. | Eph
