Monkeypox hits Europe: Five men in Portugal test positive as Spain probes eight suspected cases in men - as experts warn there could be 'tens' of cases in Britain
First signs of global outbreak of rare disease as Portugal, UK, Spain all find cases
Experts fear disease is spreading in communities for first time, going undetected
US health officials are monitoring six Americans who were in contact with case
Monkeypox has now been spotted in Portugal and Spain, in what could be the first global outbreak of the rare disease.
Spain is monitoring eight men who it believes are infected, with tests being carried out to confirm they have the virus.
All of the men are gay or bisexual, according to local media, and most were detected at STI clinics in Madrid.
Five men in Portugal have also tested positive and at least 15 more cases are being investigated, health officials there said today.
These cases are all male and mostly 'young' — but it is not yet clear how they caught the virus.
Until now, monkeypox cases were confined to travellers and their relatives returning from western and central Africa, where the virus is endemic.
But experts now fear it is spreading more widely for the first time, after seven Britons were diagnosed in the past fortnight.
Six of them appear to have been infected in the UK and the majority are not linked, which suggests more cases are going undetected. Health chiefs are scrambling to find the source of the cases.
Four of the British patients are gay or bisexual men, and officials say the pattern of transmission is 'highly suggestive of spread in sexual networks'.
Dr Simon Clarke, a microbiologist at the University of Reading, told MailOnline he suspects UK case numbers are already 'in the tens'.
But he insisted the disease will not spread like Covid, adding: 'I would be surprised if we ever got to more than 100 cases [in Britain]'.
Monkeypox hits Europe: Portugal says five men have virus while Spain probes eight suspected cases | Daily Mail Online