Health Minister says Brazil is at the first level of the mpox emergency

On Thursday (15), Nísia Trindade, current Minister of Health, stated that Brazil is at the 1st level of emergency regarding the mpox disease. The minister's statement was made during the installation of the “Health Emergency Operations Center” which is responsible for coordinating response actions to the infectious disease.

Brazil in the first level of emergency

The statement by the Minister of Health, Nísia Trindade, about the situation that Brazil is in the first level of emergency of mpox, means that the new variant of the virus, called 1B in national territory, has not yet been detected in the country.

_{Health Minister Nísia Trindade reports on the status of the Mpox disease (Photo: reproduction/Instagram/@cnnbrasil)}

The new variant of mpox is more transmissible and can cause more severe clinical conditions, which has become a global concern, leading the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare the virus a global health emergency after an outbreak in Africa. The COE-Mpox will carry out surveillance and control actions for the disease in Brazil, with the function of monitoring the epidemiological situation of the Mpox virus, where response actions will be coordinated, and also addressing guidance measures for people who travel.

Symptoms and vaccine

The symptoms of the disease are acute lesions that have secretions and appear in various parts of the body as vesicles, but which are sometimes concentrated in the mouth and mainly in the genitals. The infected person may contract symptoms such as chills and headaches. The Ministry of Health also reported that it is negotiating with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) to acquire 25,000 doses of vaccines against the Mpox virus. The target audience for immunization will be people with HIV/AIDS and laboratory professionals.

_{Ministry of Health installs Mpox Emergency Operations Center (Photo: Reproduction/Instagram/@portalr7)}

According to Minister Nísia Trindade, Brazil has not yet had any cases of the 1B variant. However, since the declaration of a global emergency was announced in 2022, only cases of the disease with strain 2 have been recorded. A technical report, used by the minister, showed that infections of the disease are concentrated in men, with this percentage being 98%, in addition to people carrying the HIV virus. In Brazil, the first case of Mpox was recorded in 2022 in the state of São Paulo, and from 2022 to 2024, 12,215 diagnoses of the virus were recorded. The last death recorded to date occurred in April of this year.

Featured Photo: Brazil is in the first level of the Mpox virus (Reproduction/Instagram/@nisiatrindadelima)