There have been 67 new cases of mpox registered in Spain this year, 18 of them since August.

Madrid, August 28 (EFE). – The Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII) has registered 67 new cases of smallpox in Spain, bringing the total number of cases in our country to 334, without any significant change in severity compared to those diagnosed after 2022.

Thus, according to the latest epidemiological situation report published this Wednesday, Spain has registered a total of 8,178 positive results for mpox, 7,521 of which are in 2022, the first year of the outbreak in non-endemic countries, and 323 in the last.

Of the 67 new cases reported last week, 18 date back to August, with the rest declared by communities retrospectively, dating back to February.

This was thanks to the increased surveillance and alerting that the autonomies carried out following the WHO’s declaration of an international public health emergency on August 14, the report emphasizes.

Of the 18 countries notified in August 2024, 11 correspond to Madrid and 2 to Castilla-La Mancha, while Andalusia, Catalonia, Cantabria, Castile and León, Murcia and Murcia have notified one each.

Most of the confirmed diagnoses this year, 334 in total, were men (98.1%); Ages ranged from 6 to 76 years, with an average of 37 years.

Almost two-thirds (63.5%) were aged between 30 and 49, and just under half, 48.1%, were born in Spain. Fifteen people (4.7% of the total) were hospitalised.

89% of cases were unvaccinated or their vaccination status was unknown, and 9.8% were vaccinated against smallpox in the current outbreak, of which 25.8% received a single dose, 64.5% both doses, and the remaining 9.7% were unvaccinated. Find out the number of shots received. 1.3% were vaccinated against smallpox as children.

The mechanism of transmission of the infection in 80.8% of cases was sexual intercourse, and in 77.6% of cases these were men who had sexual relations with other men. EFE

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