A massive party in the town of Maspalomas, on the island of Gran Canaria, held between May 5 and 15 and attended by nearly 80,000 people, has become the second focus of the monkeypox outbreak in Spain , have confirmed health sources.
The event was attended by several of the positive cases diagnosed in recent days in Madrid, two or three young Italian men whose infection has been confirmed in Rome and at least one case investigated on the island itself, according to these sources.
The public health services of the Government of the Canary Islands are now investigating the relationship between these cases and whether more infections occurred during the 10 days of celebrations, including that of a suspected case detected in Tenerife.
This is the second major focus of the Moorish smallpox outbreak located in Spain in recent days.
The first is a place called Sauna Paraíso, located in the Malasaña neighborhood of Madrid, which was closed yesterday by the Ministry of Health.
The regional counselor, Enrique Ruiz Escudero, linked the establishment with "the majority" of the cases registered in the Community.
According to data published this Friday by the Ministry of Health, 30 samples analyzed by the National Microbiology Center corresponding to patients in Madrid have tested positive in the PCR tests that detect the presence of a non-human smallpox virus.
This analysis is later completed with a genetic sequencing that must confirm that it is monkeypox, but as there is currently no other
Orthopoxvirus
circulating , confirmation by PCR safely advances the final results.
A spokesman for the Government of the Canary Islands declined to report on the places where those affected have been and appealed "to the ongoing epidemiological surveys", although he does confirm that one of the Italians has been in the archipelago and denies knowing that the one from Tenerife has been in Gran Canaria, informs
Guillermo Vega.
In addition to the confirmed cases, until eight in the afternoon this Friday it has transpired that Madrid has another 15 under investigation with symptoms compatible with the disease, the Canary Islands, two, and other communities such as Andalusia, Galicia, Catalonia, the Basque Country and Extremadura one. each.
In this last community it is a woman, according to the information offered by the Board.
Maspalomas Gay Pride is one of the prominent events on the gay community calendar and thousands of people from all over Spain and many European countries attend it every year —except during the forced break caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
According to health sources, "among the thirty or so diagnosed in Madrid, there are several who attended the event, although it is not yet possible to know if one of them is patient zero of this outbreak or if they all got infected there."
Investigations have revealed that the virus began to circulate in the city during the second half of April, although most of the infections known so far occurred around the weekend of May 7 and 8.
The Maspalomas festival is also behind the first confirmed monkeypox diagnoses in Italy.
The first of them corresponds to a young man who initially went to a health center in Gran Canaria when he began to develop the symptoms of the disease —high fever, intense pain, a striking skin rash...—, but who finally He returned to Rome by plane.
All three are admitted to the Spallanzani Institute of Infectious Diseases in Rome.
The director of the center, Francesco Vaia, explained this Friday at a press conference that "they are hospitalized in Spallanzani with confirmed infection with the monkeypox virus."
"These are three young men who say they have not had contact with each other, although two of them do explain that they have recently traveled to the Canary Islands," he added.
Vaia explained that the three are in "quite good condition", that only one of them has had a fever, although all do suffer from "an enlargement of the lymph nodes, which are painful, and have developed some skin pustules".
Andrea Antinori, director of the Viral Immunodeficiency Unit at the Spallanzani Institute, recalled that monkeypox "is not a sexually transmitted disease because contagion occurs through close contact, such as that which occurs during sexual intercourse, but not only in them”.
The most common route of infection is through thick drops of saliva or by contact with fluids such as the pustules that cause the disease.
The evolution of monkeypox is favorable in almost all cases suffered by healthy people.
The incubation of the virus usually lasts between 6 and 13 days, although it can last up to 21. The symptoms begin to manifest with fever, headache and muscle pain, fatigue and swollen glands.
One to three days later, the skin rash appears with small blisters that grow, fill with pus, and then scab over.
When these dry up and fall off, which usually takes one to three weeks, the person is no longer contagious.
In the Canary Islands, health services have detected two suspected cases, both young men.
One of them lives in Gran Canaria and has links with the Maspalomas party, while the public health services are now investigating the one in Tenerife.
