The initial two samples previously presumed to be smallpox were validated to be monkeypox by PCR at the National Reference Laboratory (NRL) for Non-Influenza and Influenza Respiratory Viral Diseases.

Three other patients were discovered to have the disease after new tests. As a result, there are now five genuine monkeypox cases in the Czech Republic. The laboratory verified that all of the infections were caused by the West African Monkeypox clade.

Three new infections were confirmed on an electron microscope and verified by PCR, but one other sample tested positive only on the electron microscope without the capacity for confirmation by PCR.

However, since this is a patient who has had direct touch with an existing case and shows similar clinical manifestation, we believe the sample is undoubtedly positive.

The following cases have been confirmed by PCR testing. They are two fresh samples from sick people at the Central Military Hospital and one sample from Bulovka University Hospital. All cases are the benigner version of the West African virus with a death rate of about 1%.

There is a second class of monkeypox viruses known as the Congo basin clade. It has not been discovered in people in Europe or other nations nor is it within Czech Republic’s borders.

Roughly 1,000 cases of monkeypox are reported in the Congo annually. Both forms of the monkeypox virus are endemic in rodents and primates in western and central Sub-Saharan Africa.