Posted on22. May 2022, 5:19 pm
Belgium is the first country to quarantine monkey pox. Suspicious cases are now appearing in more and more countries.
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According to experts, the occurrence of monkey pox in many countries outside of Africa is unusual.
Twitter Marc Van Ranst 
Belgium is the first country to quarantine monkey pox.
Twitter Marc Van Ranst 
Infected people have to self-isolate for 21 days.
Twitter Marc Van Ranst
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Monkey pox is an infectious viral disease caused by orthopoxvirus.
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The World Health Organization has identified about 80 cases worldwide and about 50 suspicious cases.
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The first case also exists in Switzerland.
The monkey pox pathogen is spreading to several western countries. As of Saturday, WHO reports about 90 confirmed infections and 30 suspected cases in countries where the virus, which originates in West and Central Africa, usually does not occur. The infections are unusual as most of those affected have not traveled to these countries before. There is also a confirmed case in Switzerland.
21-day quarantine obligation
According to Bild, Belgium is now the first country to introduce a quarantine obligation for infected people. They have to isolate themselves for 21 days. Quarantine does not apply to contacts. So far, three cases of monkey pox have been reported in Belgium.
On Friday morning virologist Marc Van Ranst announced on Twitter that a second case of monkey pox had been confirmed in Belgium. A man from the province of Flemish Brabant has been infected with the virus.
Three cases of viral disease have been confirmed in Germany, one in Munich and two in Berlin. According to the WHO, the fact that cases are detected all over Europe suggests that the virus has been passed on for a while. In Europe, cases have so far been reported from Spain, UK, France, Italy and Switzerland. There was also evidence of the disease in Australia, Canada, and the US.
The disease belongs to zoonoses
“We don’t have to worry about a new pandemic,” said virologist Gerd Sutter of Ludwig-Maxiliams University in Munich in an interview published on Saturday by Zeit Online. Monkey pox viruses are different pathogens than human pox triggers.
The disease is one of the zoonoses, which are diseases that are passed on from animals to humans many times and are almost never transmitted from person to person.
(DPA / Lea)