The first case of monkeypox has been confirmed in Turkey. This was announced on Twitter by the head of the Ministry of Health Fahrettin Koca.
“Monkeypox was found in one of our patients. A 37-year-old patient has a deficiency of the immune system. He is isolated. A dynamic observation was carried out, no other cases were detected, ”he wrote, emphasizing that the disease is transmitted through close physical contact, and not by airborne droplets.
Koca did not specify in which city in Turkey the case was registered.
Monkeypox began to spread outside of Africa in May of this year. The United Kingdom was the first to report cases. The virus was found in a Nigerian plane passenger. Later, other states also reported cases of infection, including Australia, Belgium, Canada, the United States, Georgia, and South Korea.
According to WHO, as of June 22 since the beginning of the year, 3,413 cases of infection have been registered in 50 countries.
Monkeypox is a rare viral disease that mainly occurs in Central and West Africa, where tropical rainforests grow and animals that usually carry the virus live. Sometimes the virus is detected in other countries in people who have arrived from monkeypox-endemic regions.
For the first time, cases of infection among people were identified in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (then – Zaire). The first cases outside Africa were reported in 2003 in the United States. The last major outbreak occurred in Nigeria in 2017, but in 2018-2019 smallpox cases were found in the UK, Israel and Singapore.
Patients have a fever, swollen lymph nodes, muscle pain, skin rash, and headache. The incubation period for monkeypox is usually 6 to 16 days; in some cases, the disease may appear on the fifth day or three weeks later.
A person can become infected with the virus through contact with blood, body fluids, affected skin or mucous membranes of infected animals, as well as through airborne droplets through prolonged contact with an animal.