A 41-year-old man from São Paulo who had just returned from Spain has been confirmed Wednesday as Brazil's first case of monkeypox. The patient is now in isolation at the Emilio Ribas Hospital in South America's largest city, which is also monitoring a 26-year-old woman, also in isolation, but with no travel record.
World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressed his concern following new data on the spread of monkeypox allowing scientists to say community transmission of the malady is already occurring.
Uruguay's Health Ministry (MSP) Thursday announced it was monitoring four cases suspected of being monkeypox. All of them are of people with a travel history to countries where the malady has already been detected.
A leading World Health Organization (WHO) scientist has been reported as saying there were no concerns about the monkeypox outbreak ever evolving into a pandemic like COVID-19.
Argentine health authorities Friday confirmed the first two cases of monkeypox in the country. Both men had been in Spain recently but are not connected.
Brazil's National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) Tuesday made it clear that measures already in place at airports and inside airplanes were being upped to protect people from COVID-19 as well as from other diseases and pointed out it isolating patients to tackle monkeypox was not among the recommendations issued.
Argentina's Health Ministry of Health Sunday announced the first suspected case of monkeypox had been detected in the country and that it was being monitored closely.
Uruguayan health authorities announced during the weekend they were monitoring the possible local appearance of suspected cases of monkeypox, based on the symptomatology and travel history of individuals.
WHO and partners are working to better understand the extent and cause of an outbreak of monkeypox. The virus is endemic in some animal populations in a number of countries, leading to occasional outbreaks among local people and travelers. The recent outbreaks reported across 11 countries so far are atypical, as they are occurring in non-endemic countries.
On 7 May 2022, WHO was informed of a confirmed case of monkeypox in an individual who travelled from the United Kingdom to Nigeria. The case developed a rash on 29 April 2022 and returned to the United Kingdom on 4 May. Monkeypox was suspected and the case was immediately isolated.