Third possible case of monkeypox discovered in US

GENEVA/ATLANTA • United States health authorities said they may have found a third case of the monkeypox virus in the country and are running tests on a patient in South Florida to confirm if the person has contracted the disease, which is staging a rare outbreak outside of Africa.

The case in Broward County, Florida, is "related to international travel", the US Centres for Disease Control (CDC) and the Florida Department of Health said in a statement on Sunday, adding that the person remains isolated.

The results of tests conducted by the CDC are expected soon. No other cases have been identified in the state, the release said.

Meanwhile, the United Nations' Aids agency (UNAids) on Sunday called some reporting on the monkeypox virus racist and homophobic, warning of exacerbating stigma and undermining the response to the growing outbreak.

UNAids said "a significant proportion" of recent monkeypox cases have been identified among gay, bisexual and other men who have had sex with men.

But transmission is most likely via close physical contact with a monkeypox sufferer and could affect anyone, it added, saying some portrayals of Africans and LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex) people "reinforce homophobic and racist stereotypes and exacerbate stigma".

Monkeypox, which mostly occurs in west and central Africa, is a viral infection that was first recorded in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the 1970s. Symptoms include fever, headaches and skin rashes starting on the face and spreading to the rest of the body.

The first monkeypox case in the US was reported in Massachusetts last Wednesday. The disease, which is similar to human smallpox but milder, was found in a man who had recently travelled to Canada. The second US case was a New York City resident who tested positive for the virus last Friday, health officials said.

In Europe, more than 100 cases of the viral infection, which spreads through close person-to-person contact, have been reported recently.

Portugal's health authorities yesterday reported 14 new confirmed cases of monkeypox, bringing the total tally of confirmed cases to 37.

In neighbouring Spain, health authorities in the region of Madrid confirmed four more cases yesterday, raising the total to 34.

Denmark and Scotland confirmed their first cases of monkeypox yesterday.

President Joe Biden has sought to reassure Americans that the current monkeypox outbreak was unlikely to cause a pandemic on the scale of Covid-19.

"I just don't think it rises to the level of the kind of concern that existed with Covid-19," he told reporters yesterday in Tokyo.

REUTERS, BLOOMBERG