Israel’s Health Ministry confirmed the country’s first case of monkeypox on Saturday after the viral illness was recently detected in North America and Europe.
According to a ministry statement, a man in his thirties returning from Western Europe, who went to Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv with lesions suspicious of the virus and identified by the ministry as the first suspected case of monkeypox in Israel, was found to have contracted the disease.
The statement said a clinical sample was tested at the Israel Institute for Biological Research, where the suspicion of monkeypox was confirmed.
The patient, who was exposed to someone with monkeypox in Western Europe, was hospitalized in quarantine for medical examination and monitoring.
The ministry, which said the man is in good health, also asked those who returned from abroad and developed fever and a rash with blisters to seek medical attention.