According to the Senate Department for Health, two cases of monkeypox have been confirmed in Berlin. It can be assumed "that further infections may be registered in the next few days", the Senate Administration stated on Saturday. According to the statement, the condition of those infected is "stable"; investigations into possible contact persons are ongoing.

The contact persons should be informed about possible symptoms, hygiene measures and transmission routes. An ongoing sequencing will show whether the Berlin cases are of the West or Central African virus strain. According to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Central African virus variants in monkeypox are "significantly more virulent" than the West African virus variants, i.e. they are more contagious.

Bavarian Health Minister Klaus Holetschek stated that the first confirmed monkeypox case in Germany, which became known in Bavaria on Friday, is an infection with the milder West African variant. This was the result of the genome sequencing of the virus at the Institute for Microbiology of the German Armed Forces in Munich, Holetschek announced on Saturday.

In Berlin, Health Senator Ulrike Gote explained that there was a close exchange with the health offices, the RKI, the Charité and the Federal Ministry of Health in order to "protect the population as best as possible from the monkeypox virus".

There was "no reason to panic, but reason to be cautious, as many scientific findings about the disease are still preliminary because it is so rare", Gote explained further. However, experts assume "that we do not have to fear a new pandemic", the health senator emphasised. "But we must now act quickly and consistently to detect and contain cases of infection," she added.

The clinic director of infectious diseases at Charité, Leif Erik Sander, said the dynamics of the current monkeypox outbreak were "unusual" and therefore needed to be taken very seriously until the chains of infection and submission routes were better characterised and effectively interrupted.

"We have so far observed a disproportionate clustering of monkeypox infections among males, especially after sexual contact with other males," Sander continued. "As the infection is transmitted through close skin contact and possibly also through mucosal contact and droplets, I currently recommend extra caution and avoidance of close unprotected contact with unknown persons."

Monkeypox is a rare viral disease caused by the monkeypox virus. Since early May 2022, the virus has been spreading from person to person in Europe for the first time without an epidemiological link to West or Central Africa.

According to current scientific findings, however, the virus spreads less easily from person to person than, for example, the coronavirus Sars-CoV-2. As things stand, close physical contact is required for for transmission. A risk to the health of the general population is therefore currently assessed by the RKI as low. Nevertheless, according to the Berlin Senate Administration, it must be expected that there will be further cases.

Symptoms of monkeypox in humans include fever, headache, muscle pain and a rash that often starts on the face and then spreads to other parts of the body. Most people recover from the disease within several weeks; a fatal course is rare.