At the beginning of May, 80,000 people came to the international “Maspalomas Pride” on the holiday island. According to a media report, Spanish authorities are now investigating whether monkeypox could have spread there.
The Spanish authorities are investigating the assumption that gay pride parties on the holiday island of Gran Canaria could have been another source of infection for monkeypox. That reports the newspaper El País citing health sector sources. About 80,000 people from Spain and many other countries took part in the “Maspalomas Pride” from May 5 to 15, which was mainly attended by homosexual men, the newspaper reported. Men from Italy, from Madrid and from the neighboring island of Tenerife, where the virus was detected, are said to have taken part in the celebrations. Intimate contacts are a possible transmission route for the virus.
The authorities closed Madrid’s “Sauna Paraíso” on Friday because several men are said to have been infected there as well. So far, 30 cases of monkeypox have been detected in Spain, the media reported on Friday. There are also another 23 suspected cases. The local newspaper wrote about the situation in Portugal Publicothat 23 cases have now been confirmed. The first infected person recorded in Germany had traveled from Portugal via Spain to Germany – it is still unclear whether he was infected in one of the two countries. The 26-year-old has been treated at the Munich-Schwabing Clinic since Friday – according to the doctors, he is doing well.
He contracted 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 announced by the Bavarian Ministry of Health. The State Office for Health and Food Safety (LGL) currently considers the general risk of infection for the population to be low.
Infections with the monkeypox virus are being reported from more and more countries. Fever, severe headache, back and throat pain, cough, and often also swelling of the lymph nodes are possible symptoms. A rash that spreads from the face to the body is also typical. The virus usually causes only mild symptoms, as doctors explain, but it can also have severe, and in some cases fatal, courses. It is mainly transmitted via direct contact or contact with contaminated materials. Transmission via droplets in the air is also possible over shorter distances – which is probably very rare.