June 30, 2022 10.05 am This story is over 21 months old

Second monkeypox case reported in Lincolnshire

Second consecutive week a case was reported here
Monkeypox is a rare infection that has begun to spread in countries around the world | Photo: Adobe Stock
By Local Democracy Reporter

A second case of the rare monkeypox virus emerged in Lincolnshire last week, as the World Health Organisation continues to monitor outbreaks across the globe.

Weekly infectious disease data published by the UK Health Security Agency found that during the week ending June 26 there were a further 32 cases of monkeypox in England and Wales.

Monkeypox, a rare disease caused by a virus from the same family as smallpox which occurs most often in remote parts of Africa, arrived in Greater Lincolnshire last week, with a confirmed case on the county border in Newark and another in North Lincolnshire.

During the week ending June 26 there was another confirmed monkeypox case in Lincolnshire, this time in South Holland.

Symptoms for the virus include fever, headaches, back pain, aching muscles and unusual swelling, with the fever breaking into a rash and spreading across your body. Monkeypox can be spread in close contact with people, entering through broken skin or the respiratory tract.

32 more infections adds on to more than 750 confirmed cases in the UK, as the government recently announced the release of smallpox vaccine stock to provide protection against the emerging virus.

On Tuesday the World Health Organisation issued an update to the public health response for monkeypox, stating that clinical and public health incident responses have been activated by member states to control infection.

It comes as COVID wards have been reinstated at Lincolnshire hospitals to try and combat a spike in coronavirus numbers for patients in the county.

At the beginning of June, there were 16 patients in hospitals in Lincolnshire with COVID-19, and the most recent data on Wednesday reported that there were now 64.

Elsewhwere in the weekly data, a singular case of measles was documented in North East Lincolnshire, as well as a report of tuberculosis in South Kesteven. There were just 80 tuberculosis in the whole of England and Wales last week.

There were also six cases of scarlet fever in Lincolnshire according to the UKHSA – two in Lincoln and West Lindsey, one in South Holland and another in North Kesteven.