Spain, Brazil report first monkeypox deaths outside Africa

About 70 percent of cases in the outbreak that began in May have been found in Europe and 25 percent in the Americas.

Spain and Brazil have reported one death each from monkeypox in what are thought to be the first fatalities linked to an outbreak of the disease that began in early May.

Spain is one of the world’s worst-hit countries, with 4,298 cases of the virus, according to the health ministry’s emergency and alert coordination centre.

“Of the 3,750 (monkeypox) patients with available information, 120 cases were hospitalised (3.2 percent) and one case has died,” the centre said in a report on Friday.

A health ministry spokesperson declined to give further details on the patient who died. An autopsy is due to take place.

In Brazil, the patient who died was a 41-year-old man.

The health ministry said he also suffered from lymphoma and a weakened immune system.

He had been admitted to hospital in the southeastern city of Belo Horizonte and died from septic shock after being taken to the intensive care unit.

“It is important to underline that he had serious co-morbidities, so as not to spread panic in the population. The death rate is very low” for monkeypox, said Minas Gerais health secretary Fabio Baccheretti.