The first case of monkey flu in Germany has been confirmed. The Bavarian Ministry of Health announced on Friday that the victim was a 26-year-old Brazilian man who had traveled from Portugal to Munich via Spain. He was in the Bavarian capital for a week, having previously traveled to Dசsseldorf and Frankfurt in Maine. This is the first case of monkey flu in Germany; According to the Robert Koch Institute, the virus has not been detected in this country before.
The patient has only slight symptoms with difficulty swallowing and high temperature, and no special medication is required. He will be in the hospital for three to four weeks as he is expected to have an infection.
According to health officials, the virus usually causes only mild symptoms, but can also have severe cases. In individual cases, dangerous diseases are possible. The virus is mainly transmitted through direct contact or contact with contaminants.
Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach was not surprised by this first finding: “It was only a matter of time before monkey flu was diagnosed in Germany as well.” Physicians and patients in Germany have been sensitive to reports from other countries. He does not consider that there are currently a large number of unregistered cases in Germany, he said. “Based on the knowledge available so far, we believe that the virus will not spread so easily and that this outbreak can be controlled,” Lauterbach explained. There are two types of the virus – the West African variant that is currently in circulation causing less intensive studies, not the Congolese variant. The virus will be analyzed in more detail for clarification.
Charité epidemiologist Leaf Sander sees more than 100 cases worldwide in which the monkey box is suspected or already confirmed, an unusually changing situation. “With a longer incubation period, I expect a further significant increase in cases,” he wrote on Twitter. It should be noted that the monkey is not contagious and can be expected to spread over a wide area such as the corona. “It’s very serious, but we’re ready.”
The observed accumulation is already an epidemic – but “this epidemic is unlikely to last long,” said Fabian Leanderts, director of the Helmholtz Institute for One Health (HIOH) at Greifswald and chairman of the project team. Pathogen at Robert Koch Institute (RKI). Cases can be well reduced by contact tracking and medications and effective vaccines can be used. According to Lendarts, additional data is urgently needed to understand how the registered cases are related. To check if the pathogen has changed, it is also important to understand the genome of the viral material from the samples from the victims – for example, in the direction of best transmission.
Virus detection in France, Canada, Australia and the United States
Monkey carcinogenesis is currently being diagnosed in more and more countries. France also registered the first case on Friday, and the virus has been found in the United States, Canada and Australia and other parts of the world. It is not clear to what extent the virus, which originated in Africa, has already spread internationally. Norbert Brockmeier, president of the German STI Society, said he thinks the virus has been spreading unnoticed for some time because of the high number of cases. STI refers to sexually transmitted infections.
According to media reports, 30 cases have now been confirmed in Spain. There are also 23 suspicious cases, the newspaper said Front On Friday, the health ministry was quoted as saying. In Portugal, according to the newspaper General 23 cases have been confirmed. The victim in Australia was a former returnee from the UK. The number of cases registered there has risen from 9 to 20, according to British Health Minister Sajid Javed on Friday. The country bought the smallpox vaccine – it was not initially clear how much and to whom it should be vaccinated.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has called for strict monitoring of all contact with victims. Clinics and people need to be made aware of the symptoms. Most or all of the cases have so far involved men, and in many cases they are said to have had sex with men. According to Brockmeyer, people who have sex with different people are at risk for infection. The German Aidshilfe warned against false conclusions and stigma in the case of homosexuals. “Of course there are superficial similarities between the monkey box and HIV – this is another disease that comes from Africa, which also affects homosexuals. But this comparison does not apply to many other things,” said AIDS spokeswoman Holger Wist.
In contrast to HIV, the virus that causes monkey pox was known for a long time in the 1980s, and the disease healed spontaneously. “It is important for us that panic and unreasonable fears do not arise here.” There are still uncertainties when assessing the severity of the disease – for example, about how well the immune system is doing well – including, for example, those living with HIV who have not been treated for many years – to cope with the disease. The disease was named the Monkey Box in 1958 when the virus was first detected in monkeys in a Danish laboratory. While monkeys and humans are considered false hosts, experts suspect that the virus actually spreads to squirrels and rodents.
Describes the first case of monkey flu in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1970. To date, the disease is primarily found in remote villages in the tropical rainforests of West and Central Africa. Congo, which sometimes registers 1,000 patients a year, is the worst affected. Outside of Africa, monkey fruit is only described in a few countries; These are always imported cases.
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