The Ministry of Health of the Government of the Canary Islands has announced that studies of possible cases of monkeypox can already be carried out in the Canary Islands, once the Ministry of Health has allowed this service, previously carried out in Madrid.

In this way, the Microbiology laboratory of the Hospital Universitario Nuestra Señora de Candelaria, in Tenerife, began carrying out these studies yesterday and the one at the Hospital Universitario de Gran Canaria Dr. Negrín will begin shortly.

The Canarian Health hopes to shorten the timeframes in the diagnosis of this disease when positive cases of monkeypox continue to be added to the islands.

After a small but incessant trickle since last May 24, there are already 16 confirmed cases in the Canary Islands, with five new positive cases in the last few hours.

Thus, the confirmed and notified cases in the Canary Islands since the beginning of the alert and until today are 16 confirmed cases, 11 in Gran Canaria and 5 in Tenerife, in addition to three probable cases pending confirmation, detected in Gran Canaria, two suspected cases, pending confirmation, that have been detected one in Gran Canaria and another in Fuerteventura and ten cases discarded.

Health recalls that the symptoms described usually include fever, headache, muscle aches, lymphadenopathy and fatigue. Symptoms usually last 2 to 4 weeks, and 1 to 5 days after the onset of fever, a rash develops, often starting on the face and then spreading to other parts of the body, although it tends to be concentrated more on the face and extremities than on the trunk.