Brazilian health authorities have confirmed the first case of monkeypox in Brazil, which was diagnosed in a 41-year-old patient who arrived in the city of Sao Paulo after a recent trip to Spain, official sources said Wednesday.
The case was confirmed by the Mayor’s Office of Sao Paulo, the largest Brazilian city, which is also attentive to the situation of another patient, a 26-year-old woman, with suspicions of having contracted the disease despite the fact that she has not traveled abroad or been in contact with possible infected.
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According to the municipality, the man already diagnosed with monkeypox, whose state of health was not detailed, is isolated in the Emilio Ribas municipal hospital since he presented the first symptoms upon his arrival from Spain, one of the countries most affected by the outbreak of the disease that is registered this year in non-endemic regions.
Sao Paulo Mayor Ricardo Nunes told reporters that the relatives, relatives and neighbors of the woman suspected of having contracted the disease are being monitored by municipal health authorities.
According to the Ministry of Health, throughout Brazil there were at least seven suspected cases of contagion in people residing in the states of Santa Catarina, Ceará, Mato Grosso do Sul, Rio Grande do Sul, Rondônia and Sao Paulo.
According to the Ministry of Health, which set up a situation room to centralize surveillance of the possible spread of the disease in the country, all patients with suspicion are “isolated and recovering, and under the supervision of health surveillance teams.”
The ministry added that it has already sent samples from all patients to the laboratory to perform the respective diagnostic tests.
Faced with suspicions of monkeypox, Brazil’s National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) has recommended resuming prevention measures applied during the coronavirus pandemic and relaxed in recent months after the Government repealed the “state of emergency” declared by the covid-19 crisis.
Among other proposals, Anvisa suggested that the use of masks and social distancing be resumed at airports and flights.
Monkeypox has been endemic for at least 40 years in West and Central African countries.
Although isolated cases had previously been reported in other regions, always linked to people who had traveled to the African continent, this year there has been a more widespread outbreak in several non-endemic countries.
The World Health Organization (WHO) counted as of Monday 780 confirmed cases in recent weeks in non-endemic countries, in 88% of them diagnosed in Europe.
Laboratories have confirmed this pathogen in 27 countries outside the endemic regions, with the United Kingdom as the country with the most infections (207), followed by Spain (156), Portugal (138), Canada (58) and Germany (57).
There have also been more than a dozen cases in the United States, Belgium, France, Italy and the Netherlands, as well as two infections in Argentina and one in Mexico, according to data received by the WHO from national health networks.
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