Monkeypox virus – Would it arrive in Latin America?

Abstract

May 2022 mark the beginning of a new outbreak of some degree of concern, globally, as it is spreading relatively quickly in multiple countries, between persons even without travel-related history [1]. Monkeypox, a DNA virus member of the Orthopoxvirus genus (family Poxviridae) (Figure 1), is now the cause of clinical disease in almost 200 hundred suspected cases in more than a dozen of countries (Figure 2) outside Africa, where this zoonosis is endemic, especially in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in the Republic of the Congo and Nigeria.

As the number of cases increases daily, the question in Latin America is quite apparent. Would Monkeypox arrive in Latin America? Yes. When writing this Editorial, a suspected case is already investigated in Argentina. A traveller from Spain, with clinical findings compatible with Monkeypox infection. Then, as has occurred with the COVID-19 pandemic [2], we should expect to have more suspected Monkeypox cases in Argentina, as well as, in other countries, especially in those with a large volume of international flights between them and North America and Europe, as is the case of Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Peru, among others in the region.