Monkeypox is doing the rounds in Europe for the first time. The infectious disease, which kills 1 to 4 percent of patients, comes from Africa. A first infection has now also been confirmed in our country.
“It concerns someone who has reported complaints to us in Antwerp. Samples were taken and sent to a reference lab in the Netherlands and late today we received final confirmation that it concerns the monkeypox virus. The person in question is not very ill,” said researcher Isabel Brosius. The patient must be quarantined.
Tomorrow the Belgian experts will meet to discuss a joint action plan. According to Joris Moonens of the Agency for Care & Health, it is not yet necessary to worry about spreading among the general population: “The disease is only transmitted through close contact, so not through fleeting contacts.”
Virus
The monkey pox is caused by a virus. It belongs to the same family as smallpox, which was officially eradicated in 1980. The symptoms are also similar to those of smallpox: fever, headache, muscle aches, chills and rash. Blisters filled with clear fluid or pus form on the skin. At some point, those blisters break open and crusts form. But monkeypox is a lot less dangerous than ‘ancient’ smallpox, which killed 30 percent of patients. In the vast majority of cases, monkeypox will go away on its own within a few weeks.
England now has nine monkey pox patients. There are also reports from other European countries. Portugal has already reported 14 confirmed cases of monkey pox, Spain seven and Sweden one. One case has already been found in the US.