France had 440 confirmed cases of infection with the monkeypox virus on Tuesday, health authorities announced. Among these cases, there are 312 cases in Ile-de-France, 30 in Occitanie, 29 in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, 21 in New Aquitaine, 16 in Hauts-de-France, 7 in Normandy, 3 in Brittany, 3 Grand-Est, 1 in Centre-Val-de-Loire, 1 in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, and 1 in Pays-de-la-Loire.
The PACA region has 16 confirmed cases. This week, health authorities noted the contamination of a child attending a primary school in Ile-de-France. “He was treated medically and shows no signs of seriousness. A probable case has been identified within the same siblings”, say the health authorities.
Cases in men but not exclusively
According to them, the cases under investigation declare that they cannot identify the person who allegedly infected them and 60 of the cases investigated are secondary cases.
It should be noted that these cases occurred mainly, but not exclusively, in men who have sex with men (MSM), with no direct link to people returning from endemic areas. The majority of cases report multiple sexual partners.
Not a global health emergency (yet)
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Saturday that the global outbreak of monkeypox was a health threat whose evolution was very worrying, without yet reaching the stage of a global health emergency.
The director general of this UN agency, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, had convened a meeting of experts on the issue on Thursday to find out whether the WHO should trigger its highest level of alert in the face of the epidemic, which mainly affects Western Europe.
A spike in monkeypox cases has been detected since early May, far from central and west African countries where the disease has long been endemic. More than 3,200 confirmed cases and one death have been reported to WHO from around 50 countries where the disease is not endemic this year.