Mexico confirms first case of monkeypox in the country

Mexican health authorities confirmed this Saturday the first case of monkeypox in the country, a 50-year-old man living in the United States.

“Today (Saturday) we confirmed the first imported case of monkeypox in Mexico. He is a 50-year-old man, a permanent resident of New York City, who probably caught it in the Netherlands.

He is treated in CDMX (Mexico City), “the Undersecretary of Health, Hugo López-Gatell, reported on Twitter. “Fortunately, he is stable and in preventive isolation. We hope that he will recover without complications,” he added.

López-Gatell did not specify the patient’s nationality or details about possible contacts with other people.. On Friday, Argentine health authorities confirmed the first two cases of the disease in that country and in the region.

The first confirmed was that of a 40-year-old man who had returned to Argentina from Spain, while the second is a resident of that same European country who is visiting the province of Buenos Aires and who has no connection. with the previous patient.

Monkeypox is an infectious disease caused by a virus transmitted to humans by infected animals.. Person-to-person transmission is possible but considered rare.

The disease was first identified in humans in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and is currently considered endemic in a dozen African countries.

Its appearance in non-endemic countries is what worries experts. So far confirmed cases in non-endemic regions are generally benign and no deaths have been reported.

AFP