Monkeypox: more than 4,000 confirmed cases this week, Portugal has 73 more | Health
Portugal now has 588 confirmed cases of monkeypox. Since last Thursday, 7 new operations have been added, as indicated in the weekly report published by the Directorate-General for Health (DGS) On the day of possibility of risk, or first, whether in three risk contacts, or first, the vaccine in three available data.
Worldwide, there are more than 4,000 confirmed cases this week: the infected already exceed 15,000. According to Dice from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), only 243 cases have been reported since May in countries where the virus is already routinely present. The global outbreak of monkeypox (varicella or VMPX) has already affected 65 countries on all continents – most for the first time in their history.
Spain remains the most affected country, with more than 3,000 confirmed cases in its territory. Also noteworthy are the United States (2322), United States (2137), Germany (2110) and France (1453)
In Portugal, the cases in most people are in most of the Lisbon and Tagus Valley region (805), with only one woman infected. All remaining confirmed cases are men, the majority under the age of 45.
This Thursday, an article by Dutch researchers was also released on the detection of VMPX in a child in the Netherlands. The child will have years of health and, despite investigation of less than a number of known persons, nor with any men who are men of health with other factors that have been other recurrently recurrently by health authorities). The child is, but investigators warn of a need for greater diagnosis and case-finding capacity. No article published in cientific magazine Eurosurveillanceand the prevention of risk groups.
Antivirals and more vaccine doses
The last technical standard in Portugal after the publication of the week of publication by the DGS. The intent is just a suspected or confirmed contact. Portugal received 2700 doses of the vaccine at the end of June, as a result of the joint purchase of vaccines by the European Commission
Last Friday, an official source from the European Commission confirmed to the PUBLIC that it also consults the joint purchase of antivirals for monkeypox. The purchase will be made from the European agency HERA (Sanitary Response and Emergency Authority), which also contracted the purchase of vaccines in June. The prospect of buying medicines has existed since the end of May, but only now will it come to fruition.
Although they did not confirm the name of the drug in question, the only antiviral approved by the European Medicines Agency for use against this disease is tecovirimat. This drug is also recommended by the World Health Organization, having shown promise in extending the period and symptoms. Data on these effects in people infected with monkeypox (varicella or VMPX) are, however, scarce.
This week, European Commissioner Stella Kyriakides said that another 54,000 doses of third-generation smallpox vaccines had been ordered. It is the second ordered by the European entity to the Danish pharmaceutical Bavarian Nordic, after a first order of 110 thousand doses. These doses boil down to the part within the European Union, remain one reserved for donations to other countries revealed.
In response to the increasing number of reported cases of VMPX (EU) and around the world. We now have around 6000 confirmed cases in the EU, this is an increase of more than 50% since the last week”, said the health commissioner in a response by the e-mail.
WHO meets emergency committee
Also this Thursday, the Emergency Committee of the World Health Organization (WHO) reconvened to reassess the decision not to consider this outbreak an international public health emergency. The decision should be known in the coming days.
A month ago, the discard committee came back with this statement, but now reviewing the decision at the request of the director-general, Tedros Adhanom Grebreyesus. If the current outbreak of PMV is considered an emergency, as it will be, above all, of an international symbolic character: reinforcement of the alarm in the face of this disease and alert to the need for surveillance by WHO member states.
In his speech at this Thursday’s meeting of the WHO general meeting, he expressed concern about the rise in the number of cases, and that the capacity for international collaboration does not contribute to the opening of work for men who have sex with men – who have been more severe with the disease in which this is asked.
Cases at the first meeting, confirmed cases in countries where the virus is not usually present more than tripled. The declaration of an international public health emergency is the highest level of alert the WHO can issue. This state is defined by the WHO as an extraordinary, serious or unexpected event that has public health implications beyond a country’s borders and that may require immediate and concerted international action.
So far only six international emergencies have been declared, all after 2009: covid-19 (2020), Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (2019), zika (2016), Ebola outbreak in West Africa (2014), and pandemic of influenza with H1N1 virus (2009). As noted in previous cases, the declaration does not unlock new measures or funding, but implies the WHO’s position that this is an international outbreak, in need of cooperation across borders.