There is no reason to panic, but reason to be careful, says Health Senator Gote. The first case in Munich became known on Friday.
Two cases of monkeypox have been confirmed in Berlin. This was announced by the Senate Department for Health on Saturday. The condition of the two patients is stable. Contact persons are currently being investigated. DNA sequencing should show whether it is the rather milder West African virus strain or the Central African virus strain that often leads to serious diseases.
“It can be assumed that further infections may be registered in the next few days,” said the Senate administration. Health Senator Ulrike Gote (Greens) said there was no reason to panic, but reason to be cautious, as many scientific findings about the disease were still preliminary. “However, experts assume that we do not have to fear a new pandemic. But we must now act quickly and consistently to identify and contain cases of infection.”
Munich patient suffers from a milder variant
On Friday there was the first confirmation of a case of monkeypox in Germany. According to the Bavarian Ministry of Health, the patient is a 26-year-old from Brazil who traveled from Portugal to Munich via Spain. He went to the medical examination himself and is being treated in an isolated room at the Schwabing Clinic.
The man suffers from the milder West African of the two known virus variants. This was the result of the genome analysis of the pathogen at the Bundeswehr Institute for Microbiology, as the Bavarian Ministry of Health announced on Saturday. The pathogen is notifiable and may only be examined in specialized laboratories with special safety precautions.
Most sufferers recover within weeks
The Bavarian State Office for Health and Food Safety (LGL) currently considers the general risk of infection for the population to be low. The Robert Koch Institute also expects further cases in Germany, but not a wave of infections. “According to current knowledge, close contact is required for transmission of the pathogen, so it can currently be assumed that the outbreak will remain limited,” writes the RKI on its website. “According to current knowledge, a risk to the health of the general population in Germany is assessed as low.”
In contrast to human smallpox, which has been classified as eradicated since 1980, monkeypox usually takes a milder course, according to the RKI, so most people recover within weeks. Possible symptoms are fever, severe headache, back pain, sore throat, cough, and often also swelling of the lymph nodes. A rash that spreads from the face to the body is also typical. Blindness and disfiguring scars rarely occur as permanent damage.