Over the past week, the health service has registered 67 new cases of monkeypox, and in 2024, 334 have already been identified.

The Ministry of Health published an updated epidemiological situation on cases of monkeypox infection on Wednesday, which indicates an increase of 67 cases compared to the previous report published on August 19 and reached 334 cases so far in 2024compared to 323 cases recorded in 2023.

The new update, with data up to August 26, includes a total of 8,178 confirmed cases of mpox infection since the outbreak began in April 2022 in 17 autonomous communities. Specifically, since the publication of the previous report on August 19, cases of mpox infection in Spain have increased by 20 percent, although all of them still belong to the old variant that was already present in Spain.

Areas of Spain with the most cases

The autonomous communities with the highest number of cases of oppox infection are: Community of Madrid (144 cases)which had 118 cases in the previous week; Andalusia (79)as in the previous week, and Catalonia (54)which recorded 23 cases in the previous week. However, according to data collected by the Ministry of Health, there are still There are four autonomous communities that have not reported any cases of the disease. mpox, as in: Aragon, Asturias, Navarre and La Rioja.

Of the 334 cases reported in 2024, 318 (95.2%) had a symptom onset date. The majority were men (98.1%)Age ranged from 6 to 76 years, with an average age of 37 years. 63.5 percent of those infected were aged 30 to 49 years, and 48.1 percent of those infected were born in Spain.

In August 2024, 18 cases were reported, with symptom onset dates between 5 and 19 August. The autonomous communities reporting cases that month were Madrid (11 cases), Castilla-La Mancha (2 cases), Andalusia (1 case), Catalonia (1 case), Cantabria (1 case), Castilla y León (1 case) and Murcia (1 case).

In total, 238 cases (74.8%) were observed some General symptoms throughout the clinical process (fever, asthenia, sore throat, muscle pain or headache) the most common was fever (186 cases, 58.5%); localized lymphadenopathy was observed in 154 cases (48.4%). The rash was located in the anogenital region in 238 cases (74.8%), in the oral-buccal region – in 53 cases (16.7%) and in other localizations – in 171 (53.8%).

In addition, 32 patients (11.4% of 280 cases for which information is available) experienced complications throughout the clinical process: secondary bacterial infection (13 cases), oral ulcer (7 cases), corneal infection (4 cases), myocarditis (1 case), proctitis (1 case) and 6 cases with other complications. There were 15 hospitalizations (4.7%).

All were men, with an average age of 34 years.

As for vaccination, 283 cases (89%) were not vaccinated or their vaccination status was unknown, 31 cases (9.8%) were vaccinated against smallpox in the current outbreak and four cases (1.3%) were vaccinated against smallpox as children. Of the 31 cases vaccinated with smallpox vaccine, 8 (25.8%) received a single dose, 20 (64.5%) received two doses, and in 3 cases (9.7%) the number of doses was unknown.

Features of the exhibition

In terms of exposure characteristics, of the 274 cases for which information is available, 49 (17.9%) reported close contact with a probable or confirmed case. Forty cases reported travel within 21 days prior to the date of symptom onset, although only nine were classified as imported cases.

For seven imported cases, information on the travel destination is available (Morocco (2 cases), Andorra (1 case), Czech Republic (1 case).Hungary (1 case), Serbia (1 case) and the United States (1 case)). A family outbreak was detected, involving three family members. None of them required hospitalization.

He transmission mechanism most likely it was related to close contact in the context sexual relations in 257 cases (80.8%), in 13 cases it was due to close contact of a non-sexual nature (4.1%) and in 48 cases this information was not available (15.1%). With regard to the sexual orientation of the victims, excluding minors, 246 cases (77.6%) were men who had sex with other men, nine cases (2.8%) were heterosexual men, four cases (1.3%) were heterosexual women and in 58 cases (18.3%) the information was not available.