Brazil on Friday reported the first known monkeypox-related death outside Africa in the latest outbreak of the disease. Two other fatalities have since been reported in Spain.
The Brazilian victim was a 41-year-old man from Uberlandia, about 330 miles north of Sao Paulo.
According to the country’s health ministry, he had a “weakened immune system and comorbidities, including lymphoma, which aggravated his condition.”
He was admitted to a hospital in the southeastern city of Belo Horizonte and taken to the intensive care unit. “The cause of death was septic shock aggravated by monkeypox,” the ministry said, according to the Brazilian news portal G1.
Later on Friday, Spain reported its first fatal monkeypox case.
The victim was a man from the northeastern region of Valencia. He died of encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain associated with the infection, Reuters reported, citing local media.
On Saturday Spain’s health authorities reported the country’s second monkeypox-related death. The victim is described as a young man.
The announcement comes just days after World Health Organization classified the outbreak as a public health emergency.
However, the recent deaths should not change WHO’s assessment of the outbreak in Europe.
“We know that although the disease is self-limiting in most cases, monkeypox can cause severe complications,” WHO Europe’s senior emergency officer, Catherine Smallwood, said according to The Associated Press.
“With the continued spread of monkeypox in Europe, we will expect to see more deaths. Our goal needs to be on interrupting transmission quickly in Europe and stopping this outbreak,” she added, noting that around 8% of cases in Europe have required hospitalization.
There are currently 22,485 confirmed cases of monkeypox around the world, According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 5,189 of them are in the United States.
Late on Friday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a state disaster emergency to slow the spread of the virus and to allow health care professionals to take additional steps that will help get more New Yorkers vaccinated.
According to the World Health Organization, the monkeypox virus is transmitted “from one person to another by close contact with lesions, body fluids, respiratory droplets and contaminated materials such as bedding.”
The illness has been relatively mild. Symptoms typically last between two to four weeks, and lesions can be extremely painful.
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