A first contamination by the new variant of the mpox virus has been detected in Belgium, according to the latest reports on Tuesday from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the Sciensano public health institute.
The patient is an adult who recently traveled to a country in sub-Saharan Africa where variant 1b of the virus is circulating. According to the ECDC, the patient had sexual intercourse with a person who presented symptoms compatible with infection with the mpox virus. This is characterized by skin lesions, such as pustules, high fever and muscle pain. The individual “isolated himself upon his return to Belgium”, even before the diagnosis was made. “There were no high-risk contacts,” continues Sciensano.
This case was confirmed on December 16 in Wallonia by a specific PCR test. “In view of the measures in force in Belgium, the risk for the general Belgian and European population remains low,” confirm the two health institutions.
Given his symptoms, this “man presented himself spontaneously to the hospital emergency room. He is recovering, the situation is under control”, confirmed the Walloon Agency for Quality Life (Aviq). “The procedures indicated in cases of suspected mpox are appropriate. Hospitals and doctors have been warned of these procedures. In addition, the incubation period has passed. There is very little risk for the Belgian population, so we do not We don’t worry.”
“Monkey pox” takes its name from its first identification in Danish laboratory monkeys in 1958. Noticed for the first time in humans in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1970, the disease long remained confined to around ten African countries. But, in 2022, it began to spread to the rest of the world, particularly countries where the virus had never circulated. At the end of 2022, the World Health Organization decided to favor the term “mpox” to cut short racist and stigmatizing comments circulating online.
Two concurrent epidemics are occurring, one caused by clade 1 in Central Africa, mainly affecting children, and another by the new variant, clade 1b, which affects adults in eastern DRC and neighboring countries. . The first cases outside Africa were detected in Sweden and Pakistan in mid-August. Since then, contaminations have been recorded in Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Philippines.
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