Italian monkeypox cases have risen by
26 to 740 in the last three days, the health ministry said in
its latest update Friday.
Some 201 are linked to trips abroad, the ministry said.
Males are almost all the cases, 730, with just 10 women
infected.
The average age of cases is 37.
There have been no deaths from the pox in Italy, but an Italian
tourist has died in Cuba, the first case on the Caribbean
island.
Among Italy's regions, the highest number of cases is Lombardy
with 318, the ministry said.
It is followed by Lazio with 136, Emilia Romagna (75), and
Veneto (50).
Only Basilicata, Calabria, Molise, Umbria and Val d'Aosta have
reported no cases.
The Italian embassy in Havana is assisting the family of the
Italian who died of monkeypox on the island.
He was named as Germano Mancini, 50, commander of a
Carabinieri barracks at Scorze' near Venice, and originally from
Pescara in Abruzzo.
Mancini had been on Cuba since August 15 and was taken ill three
days later.
Italy recently started monkeypox vaccinations with the first
jabs being given at Rome's Spallanzani Hospital two weeks ago
followed by others in Bologna and the rest of Emilia-Romagna.
The other two priority regions, Lombardy and Veneto, began
giving out doses of the vaccine later that week.
On July 23 the World Health Organization said monkeypox was a
"global health emergency".
The vaccination campaign is not a mass effort like the COVID one
but is instead directed at persons at greatest risk of infection
such as gays, transgender, bisexuals and other men who have sex
with men, as well as lab staff with possible exposure to the
orthopoxvirus.
The Spallanzani is Italy's premier infectious disease hospital
and treated the first COVID-19 patients in early 2020.
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