After several cases of smallpox in Great Britain, the virus was also detected in several people in Germany. So far, monkeypox has occurred in eleven countries where it does not generally spread. More than 100 confirmed or suspected cases have been reported so far, most of them in Europe.
The first smallpox case was confirmed in Bavaria on Friday. It is an infection with the milder West African variant of the virus. This was the result of genome sequencing at the Bundeswehr Institute for Microbiology in Munich, as announced by Bavarian Health Minister Klaus Holetschek.
The 26-year-old patient comes from Brazil and is isolated at the Schwabing Clinic in Munich. He came to Germany from Portugal via Spain and has been in Munich for a week. Before arriving in the Bavarian capital, he was in Düsseldorf and Frankfurt. As Clemens Wendtner, chief physician of infectious disease at Schwabing, announced Saturday, the patient is doing well. He has mild dysphagia and a high temperature, so only minor symptoms. That was still the case on Sunday, as the clinic told FAZ. The pustules typical of the disease triggered a corresponding itch. A special preparation, approved for treatment in the EU since the beginning of 2022, is purchased preventively from the hospital pharmacy of the Munich clinic. It is assumed that the infection will last for three to four weeks.
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In Berlin, several cases of monkeypox infection were found. The Senate Health Department confirmed two cases over the weekend, reportedly men in their 30s and 55s. His condition is “stable”. Both cases were confirmed by the Robert Koch Institute. According to reports in various media, another case would have been found in a Berlin hospital.
The first two men are in outpatient isolation. The 55-year-old man was reportedly infected at a sex party in Berlin. The thirty-year-old is said to have attended sex parties during Christopher Street Day in Gran Canaria two weeks ago. According to Spanish authorities, parties during the “Gay Pride” on the holiday island may have been a source of infection. The symptoms are said to be significantly stronger in him than in the older patient who has been vaccinated against smallpox.
It is still being determined whether the confirmed cases are of the Central or West African strain of the virus. Contact persons of those infected are being identified, the health administration said. It can be assumed that more cases may be added in the coming days. Health Senator Ulrike Gote of the Greens said there was no reason to panic but to be careful. Now you have to “act quickly and consistently to identify and contain cases of infection”. The director of the Charité Berlin’s infectious disease clinic, Leif Erik Sander, called the dynamics of the current monkeypox outbreak unusual. This has to be taken very seriously. The task now is to effectively discover and stop the infection routes. “So far, we’ve seen a disproportionate increase in smallpox infections among men, especially after sexual contact with other men,” Sander said.