Brazil may have first confirmed case of monkeypox. Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga commented on the suspicious episode of a man in Sao Paulo who was hospitalized in isolation at the Instituto de Infectologia Emílio Ribas. “It looks like it could be confirmed first,” he said on Wednesday (8).

This is the eighth suspected case in Brazil. The 41-year-old patient has recently traveled to two countries that are at the top of the list of confirmed diagnoses of the disease: Portugal and Spain. He is hospitalized and samples are still being analyzed by the Adolfo Lutz Institute and the Central Public Health Laboratory in São Paulo.

The Minister of Health said that all situations are being handled “with technical thoroughness” – Photo: Fabio Rodríguez-Pozzebom/Agência Brasil/ND

“But regardless of confirmation, the behavior remains the same. Requires monitoring. There are about a thousand cases in the world. There are eight suspects here in Brazil. It looks like this might be the first to be confirmed. Tomorrow (Thursday – 9) Secretary [de Saúde do Estado de São Paulo] will be in Rio de Janeiro, where he will hold a meeting with laboratories to develop a testing strategy,” Queiroga said.

According to him, next Friday (10) a control document should be sent to the laboratory. “This is a test similar to RT-PCR. Naturally, you need control to make sure it’s really monkeypox. [varíola do macaco] or not,” he commented. The minister also said that all these situations were handled “with technical thoroughness”.

*According to information from the R7 portal