The first case of monkeypox has been reported in Germany. The Bundeswehr Institute for Microbiology in Munich for the first time in Germany clearly detected the monkeypox virus in a patient with characteristic skin changes on Thursday, the Bundeswehr Medical Service announced on Friday.

Several outbreaks of monkeypox have recently been known in Europe, including those in Great Britain, Portugal, Spain, Italy, France and Belgium.

The monkeypox virus usually causes only very mild symptoms, but it can also have severe courses. Symptoms of monkeypox include fever, headache and skin rash, which usually start on the face and spread to the rest of the body.

The first monkeypox patient was described in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. To date, the disease is mainly seen in remote villages in the tropical rainforests of western and central Africa. The hardest hit is Congo, where sometimes more than 1,000 patients were registered per year. Outside Africa, monkeypox has been described in only a few countries; These were always imported cases.

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