Of
Berit Uhlmann
On May 5, a person in the UK developed an unusual rash. A week later, a PCR test provided the rare diagnosis of monkeypox – a disease commonly found only in West and Central Africa. Shortly thereafter, the disease was discovered in eight other patients, several of whom are gay men. Unusual is the fact that most of these cases are not connected to each other or to an area where the viruses are prevalent. Only the first known patient had previously been in a country where monkeypox had been increasing for several years; he came back from Nigeria.