The Madrid’s community has raised to 34 the number of confirmed cases from monkey pox or monkeypox and studies another 38 as suspected of ‘monkeypox’, as explained by the Minister of Health, Enrique Ruiz Escudero.
In statements to telemadrid collected by Europe Pressthe head of the Madrid Health has specified that the results of the analyzes received by the laboratory of the National Center for Microbiology (CNM) point to an increase in the number of positives to 34 cases.
Likewise, in the region other 38 cases as possible suspects monkeypox, after having ruled out three under study by laboratory analysis. Thus, the region is at the forefront in the number of monkeypox infections in Spain and Europe. In addition, in our country another fifty suspects are being investigated in eight Autonomous Communities.
Before attending an informative breakfast with the President of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the Minister of Health, Enrique Ruiz Escudero, explained that in “case of doubt” proof is always requestedso the suspected cases will gradually grow but he recalled that at this time the cases under investigation do not end up becoming positive at the same rate as at the beginning.
In this sense, he has indicated that the General Directorate of Public Health continues with the work of epidemiological surveillance since it is “essential” to find that traceability of cases and to get “in every possible way” to cut the chains of transmission “which at this initial moment is fundamental”.
In this sense, he stressed that the health authorities continue to work to try to locate ‘patient zero’ in order to trace their contacts. At the moment, a sauna in the capital that has already been sealed is one of the two outbreaks registered in the Community.
In this framework, the relationship that the cases detected in the region may have with a possible focus on a private party held in the Canary Islands. At the moment, in Spain it is at the head at the European level with 30 positives, all of them in the region, and more than fifty suspects in eight Autonomous Communities.
“You have to value very much what is the mobility of those contacts of the contagions and establish those links. Sometimes it is not easy to establish what those links are“, has indicated the counselor, who has stressed from the Community it is not ruled out “that there was some other way of entry” of the ‘monkeypox’ in addition to the Madrid sauna.
In this line, he stressed that the work is now focused on epidemiological surveillance and trying to establish the origin “and from there establish the strategy”. “What has to be left is for the teams to work. The epidemiological survey is essential,” she stressed.
The Community of Madrid detected the first eight positive cases after the alert from the United Kingdom on May 15 for the detection of the first cases of monkeypox, thus acting “very quickly”, according to the counselor.
Thus, he stressed the importance of detect “patient zero, if possible, and from there establish the pathways”. “It may seem that this work is silent but it is vital at the moment,” Escudero stressed, insisting that “the key is how patient zero was mobilized.” “If he ended up in Madrid, then he is the one with the most cases. If patient zero traveled to London, it would have been London,” he explained.
In any case, with regard to the spread of the virus, he has indicated that “there is more epidemiological concern than social concern”. Monkeypox is an eradicated disease and, due to its transmission routes, “it is not of concern in the same way as with Covid-19, which is what we all have in mind.”
In the case of the region, all those confirmed are men who have had sexual relations with men. Transmission has been by very close contact through mucous membranes during sexual intercourse.
“Epidemiological concern because there has to be, but given the profile of the patients, the route of infection and the number of cases, the situation is somewhat calm,” he stressed.
