Alex Trelinski
SPAIN’S Health Ministry will chair a special meeting on Monday to discuss the rise in mpox cases in the country.
Representatives will attend from the Coordination Centre for Health Alerts and Emergencies, the National Epidemiology Centre, the National Microbiology Centre, and the Health Ministry’s HIV and Vaccines Division.
Also on Monday, Spain will take part in a gathering of the EU Health Security Committee to analyse the situation.
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The next day, the Ministry will meet with health officials from the country’s 17 regions to discuss whether any surveillance or vaccination recommendations need to be changed in the wake of mpox spreading.
Since the start of the outbreak in 2022, a total of 8,104 confirmed cases of mpox infection have been reported in Spain.
This year up to until August 8, 264 cases of mpox have been reported to the National Epidemiological Surveillance Network (RENAVE)- most of the cases in men with an average age of 37 years.
In the last month, cases were reported in nine regions.
This year’s breakdown by regions is: Community of Madrid (116), Andalucia (67), Catalunya (22), Balearic Islands (10), the Valencian Community (11), Galicia (6), Castilla la Mancha (6), the Basque Country (5), Castilla y Leon (3), Canary Islands (3), Extremadura (1) and Murcia (1).
The main risk group- but not exclusively so- are men who have sex with other men, but also health staff involved in specialised STD/HIV care consultations who may handle samples potentially contaminated with mpox.
