GENEVA, May 22 (ABC):cThe World Health Organization (WHO) said on Saturday that there will be more monkeypox cases identified as surveillance expands in non-endemic countries.
WHO’s data show that as of Saturday, 92 confirmed cases and 28 suspected cases of monkeypox have been reported from 12 member states that are not endemic for monkeypox virus, with no associated deaths to date.
The confirmed and suspected cases were mostly reported by Britain, Spain and Portugal, the rest from Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United States.
Reported cases thus far have no established travel links to an endemic area, and cases have mainly but not exclusively been identified among men who have sex with men (MSM) seeking care in primary care and sexual health clinics, WHO said.
All cases whose samples were confirmed by PCR have been identified as being infected with the West African clade.
Genome sequence from a swab sample from a confirmed case in Portugal indicated a close match of the monkeypox virus causing the current outbreak to exported cases from Nigeria to Britain, Israel and Singapore in 2018 and 2019.