A host of countries, including France, Germany, Belgium and Australia, began to report their first infections of monkeypox on Friday, a day after the New York City Health Department said it was investigating a potential case in the city.
A microscope image shows a disease.
The United Kingdom and Spain both reported new infections on Friday, with the United Kingdom reporting 11 new cases and Spain reporting more than a dozen new infections.
Spain, Portugal, Italy and Sweden all reported their first monkeypox cases this week, many of which were not linked to the current outbreak.
The New York City Health Department said it was testing a patient at a Manhattan hospital for a possible case of monkeypox, a day after the U.S. confirmed its first and only case of the disease this year.
More than 70 cases have been confirmed across Europe, the U.S., Canada and Australia, according to data compiled by researchers at the University of Oxford and Harvard Medical School.
The latest outbreak has not caused any deaths, and experts say that the virus is usually mild and goes away on its own within a month.
The most recent Western outbreak started a few weeks ago, according to Maria Van Kerkhove, who leads the emerging diseases and zoonoses unit in the World Health Organization. There are early signs of monkeypox. A rash that looks like a disease can be caused by the virus. There has been a rise in cases not linked to travel to Africa. Van Kerkhove warned against fixing on this transmission route because most of the cases have been found among gay and bisexual men who have sex with men. The monkeypox virus can be spread through close contact with an animal, person or materials that are contaminated with the virus.
According to the WHO, the impact of the monkeypox virus is not known. There have been monkeypox cases in humans in 11 African countries since 1970. More than 500 suspected infections and a 3% mortality rate have been reported by Nigeria in a large outbreak that started in 2017, according to the WHO.
The WHO responded to the outbreak. The Telegraph reported that the health organization was holding a meeting on Friday to discuss the rise in cases. A WHO spokesman told Forbes that the organization has a number of meetings with experts on a daily basis about monkeypox.
There is a rare virus found in the U.S., the UK and Europe.
African scientists are puzzled by the spread of monkeypox in the West.
The first Monkeypox case in the U.S. was reported in Massachusetts.
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