Europe records 289 cases of MPOX in 18 countries over the past month

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) has recorded 289 cases of MPOX in the last month, a number spread across 18 countries and regions in the World Health Organization 's (WHO) European region.

Germany has reported the most cases in this period, with 77 new diagnoses, followed by Spain with 47 ; France and Italy with 25 each; the United Kingdom with 19; Switzerland with 18; Sweden with 16; the Netherlands with 14; Greece with ten; Israel with eight; Portugal and Ireland with seven each; Denmark with six; Poland with four; Hungary with three; and Belgium, Austria, and Malta with one case each.

Since August 2024, the agency has detected 32 cases of clade 1b , which is distributed in the United Kingdom (twelve), Germany (ten), Belgium (five), France (three), Switzerland (one) and Sweden (one), all of them travelers or contacts of travelers from countries with local transmission of this strain ; in addition, one case of clade 1a has been identified in Ireland.

Between March 7, 2022, and April 14 of this year, a total of 29,607 cases of MPOX were recorded in 47 countries and regions in this region , of which 98 percent occurred in men, especially those between 31 and 40 years of age , who represent 40 percent of them.

Of the 13,132 male cases with known sexual behavior, 97 percent are men who have sex with men , and among cases with known HIV status, 37 percent have been seropositive.

Around 92 percent of total cases have presented symptoms such as skin rashes, the most common, followed by fever, fatigue, muscle pain , chills, or headache, which have been present in 60 percent of cases. Only 7 percent have required hospitalization, and 319 required clinical care; nine cases ended up in the ICU, and another nine have died.