ALERT: Monkeypox outbreak has now spread to Europe

Monkeypox has now been spotted in Portugal and Spain, in what could be the first global outbreak of the rare disease.

Spain is monitoring eight men who it believes are infected, with tests being carried out to confirm they have the virus.

All of the men are gay or bisexual, according to local media, and most were detected at STI clinics in Madrid.


Five men in Portugal have also tested positive and at least 15 more cases are being investigated, health officials there said today.

These cases are all male and mostly 'young' — but it is not yet clear how they caught the virus.

Until now, monkeypox cases were confined to travellers and their relatives returning from western and central Africa, where the virus is endemic.

But experts now fear it is spreading more widely for the first time, after seven Britons were diagnosed in the past fortnight.

Six of them appear to have been infected in the UK and the majority are not linked, which suggests more cases are going undetected. Health chiefs are scrambling to find the source of the cases.

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