Berlin, Europe Brief News – The monkeypox outbreak in Europe has grown to 4,177 cases in less than 2 months, with the United Kingdom producing 25% of those cases.
The new data was released by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and the World Health Organization European regional office.
Germany has surpassed Spain and Portugal with a national total reaching 838 cases, compared to 736 cases in Spain and 365 in Portugal. France has 350 cases.
One day after the White House pledged more monkeypox vaccines would be deployed to states seeing outbreaks, the United States is also reporting a significant uptick in cases.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the US total now stands at 351 cases from 28 states and Washington, D.C. after 45 more monkeypox cases were confirmed yesterday.
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday said that the rapid appearance of the monkeypox outbreak suggests the virus has been spreading undetected.
“Investigations are ongoing but the sudden appearance of monkeypox in many countries at the same time suggests there may have been undetected transmission for some time,” Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a briefing.
Tedros said that WHO has documented more than 550 confirmed cases from 30 countries where the virus does not typically circulate. More cases are expected.
The outbreak poses a “moderate” public health risk, WHO said in an update posted Sunday.
