A second death from monkey pox has been confirmed in Spain, health officials said.
It is believed to be the third death outside of Africa since the virus spread further earlier this year.
Spain reported its first death on Friday, shortly after Brazil confirmed the first monkeypox-related fatality of the current epidemic.
In its latest report on Saturday, Spain’s health ministry said 4,298 cases had been confirmed in the country.
Of the 3,750 patients it had information about, 120 or 3.2% had been hospitalized and two had died, it said without providing further details.
The World Health Organization has labeled the outbreak a global emergency and governments around the world are rushing to contain it.
Experts believe that the virus, which passes from person to person through close contact, is sexually transmitted, with the majority of cases being found in men who have sex with other men.
UK health officials said there were more than 2,500 confirmed and suspected cases as of Thursday, with all but a few dozen in England.
Governments are buying up doses of the smallpox vaccine, which has been shown to protect against the virus.
But there have been warnings this week that wealthy countries stockpiling the treatment could lead to shortages in African regions where the disease is endemic.
On Thursday, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called for the continent to prioritize vaccines, saying it was again being abandoned.
“If we’re not safe, the rest of the world isn’t safe,” said Ahmed Ogwell, acting director of Africa CDC.
Boghuma Kabisen Titanji, an assistant professor of medicine at Emory University in Georgia, USA, said: “The mistakes we saw during the COVID-19 pandemic are already being repeated.”
He continued: “The African countries that have been dealing with monkeypox outbreaks for decades have been referred to a footnote in talks about the global response.”
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