The image was released 2 years ago and corresponds to a Mexican patient with this disease.
In the context of the emergence of new cases of monkeypox worldwide , users have spread a scene on social media that supposedly refers to the first case of the new variant of this disease recorded in Sweden in mid-August 2024. However, this version is not accurate.
A male patient is seen sitting on a stretcher in a hospital office. He is facing away from the camera and has numerous circular, black wounds on that part of his body.
The image post, published on August 15 on the Facebook and X platforms, notes that the case in question is “the first outside Africa” and that the affected person contracted the virus in a country on that continent, but does not mention which one specifically. “The WHO warns that there are likely to be more imported cases of mpox in Europe in the “coming days.” The vaccine group Gavi says it has up to $500 million available for mpox (monkeypox) response,” it adds.
To date, this content has accumulated a total of 580 reactions, 44 comments and nearly 100,000 views.
Scene associated with a recent case of monkeypox in Sweden. Photo: screenshot from X / Facebook
Photo shows a case of monkeypox in Mexico during the last quarter of 2022
Through a reverse image search on Google, we found a record of the snapshot in a post made on October 11, 2022 by Mexican infectious disease specialist José Hiram Hernández Jerónimo . In this regard, the health professional assured that it was a severe case of monkeypox with more than 250 lesions. Also, in the comments box, he specified that the patient was immunocompromised.
Original post by the infected man. Photo: screenshot by X
The Mexican newspaper La Verdad de Tamaulipas incorporated the scene in question in a note published 3 days later. The media indicated that, until October 10, 2022 , this northern state of the Aztec country had accumulated 6 cases of monkeypox and that the national total amounted to 2,147, since the first one had been detected in May of that year. Until that last date, 504 cases were still under study and 1,209 were ruled out. In addition, it detailed that the characteristic symptoms of this pathology are skin rashes, headache, muscle pain, fever, chills, among others.
Other media outlets such as Infolliteras and Publimetro posted the photo to provide a reference graph regarding the spread of this disease in Mexico. Likewise, the medical magazine Medi.Log , the NGO Punto Sero and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation also used the image to call on the public to take measures and precautions against monkeypox.
A report by The Washington Post , published on August 15, revealed the news disclosed in the viral post. The discovery came a day after the director of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom , declared monkeypox an international health emergency. Regarding the patient’s condition, an official from the Public Health Agency of Sweden specified that his infection occurred while he was visiting an African country where there is a strong outbreak of mpox clade I. This information was confirmed by the Minister of Health of the Scandinavian country.
Other media outlets such as France 24 , El País , Euronews and CNN covered the event and, like the former outlet, highlighted that the case was the first to be recorded outside Africa under the new variant. However, none of them included any images alluding to the infected man and only included referential scenes to graphically enrich the news content.
Conclusion
The viral photo is not recent. Although it shows a person infected with monkeypox, it dates back 2 years and took place in Mexico. The name of the person was not specified. On the other hand, regarding the information disseminated about the first case of this disease in Sweden, we did not find any image of the man affected by this pathology. Therefore, we rate the post as misleading .
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