Brazil reports its first monkeypox death. A 41-year-old man with cancer and a weakened immune system died in Brazil on Friday, according to a Health Ministry statement.
So far, there have been five global deaths from the disease during the current outbreak, according to data released by the World Health Organization on Thursday. The WHO has not yet commented on the victim in Brazil.
According to the Brazilian ministry, 1066 cases of monkeypox have been registered, the majority of which are from Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. The ministry is calling the disease an epidemic in its initial stage of infection.
Over 21,148 confirmed global cases of monkey cases have been reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An outbreak occurs when there is a drastic rise in the number of cases of a disease in a particular region.
Despite the growing number of cases, only 8 percent of patients were hospitalized in WHO’s European region between May 13 and July 22. There have not been any other reported deaths from monkeypox outside of Africa, where the disease is endemic.
A total of five deaths have occurred in Africa this year.
Health experts say it is unlikely for people to die from the virus during the current outbreak, with the exception of Africa. This is due to the types of virus spreading over the world.
“There are two distinct genetic clades, or sub-types, of the monkeypox virus: the virus originating in Central Africa (the Congo Basin) and the virus originating from West Africa,” Professor Orkin, author for the largest global case series on monkeypox reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, told Newsweek.
“Surveillance activities in West Africa have suggested that infection with the West African clade has occasionally been associated with mortality, estimated anywhere from less than 1 to 3 percent based on little data,” David Heymann, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said.
The mortality rate is higher for people with chronic disease such as kidney disease and other types of immunosuppression, Heymann added.
