Venezuela Reports 1st Case of Monkeypox

The Venezuelan government announced, on Monday, the first confirmed case of monkeypox, for a man who entered the country through its main airport near Caracas after arriving from Madrid.

"Contacts with the infected person were being traced," Health Minister Magali Gutierrez tweeted.

"He was immediately isolated, tests were conducted and samples were taken, giving a positive result," the minister added.

It is worth mentioning that, about 20 countries where monkeypox is not endemic have reported cases with more than 200 confirmed or suspected cases recorded, most of them in Europe.

Monkeypox is a virus that spreads from wild animals such as rats and primates to humans on rare occasions. It is related to smallpox and belongs to the same virus family, according to WHO.

The majority of human infections have occurred in Central and West Africa, with outbreaks being very rare.

Scientists discovered the sickness in 1958 after two outbreaks of a “pox-like” disease in laboratory monkeys — hence the term monkeypox. In 1970, a little boy in a rural section of Congo became the first known human infection.

Thousands of monkeypox infections are estimated to occur each year in approximately a dozen of African nations, according to the World Health Organization. The majority of cases are reported in Congo, which has around 6,000 cases per year, and Nigeria, which has about 3,000 cases per year.