SP resident with monkeypox says he was desperate when he saw nose injury

Amid the outbreak of monkeypox cases in Europe, marketing analyst Vinícius Aleixo, 30, took a three-week trip across the continent. “I toured a lot there,” he says. Holland, England and Germany were countries where he was.

Vinícius suspects that it was during this period that he became infected with monkeypox, the virus that causes smallpox in monkeys. The disease already has more than 5,000 confirmed cases worldwide, according to Reuters.

In Brazil, the Ministry of Health said this Friday (1st) that there are already 48 – and one of them is Vinícius.

A resident of São Paulo, he returned to Brazil on June 18. In the first days in the country, the marketing analyst began to feel body aches, tiredness, malaise and a lot of sleep, but he never imagined that it could be monkeypox. “When the monkey pox boom hit, I wasn’t really into what was going on,” he says.

On the last day 20, balls began to appear on your body. Initially, there were four wounds. “They looked more like mosquito bites, but I thought it was kind of suspicious because they appeared in sync.”

With the wounds, he went to a doctor. Monkeypox, however, was not considered. The professionals thought it could be some skin irritation and prescribed an antibiotic. Vinícius started treatment the next day, on the 21st.

The wounds continued to grow over the next few days. “I started to find it very strange because I started taking medicine to improve instead of worsening”, she says. The moment he was most bothered was on Friday (24) when one of the blisters appeared on the tip of his nose.

“That’s when despair hit,” he says. On the same day, he looked for an emergency room, but the service was not able to help as much. On Saturday (25), he went to an AMA (Ambulatory Medical Assistance). There, a battery of tests was carried out, which would only be ready in another week.

Until then, Vinícius says he didn’t necessarily think he had monkeypox. “I didn’t think about anything. I left it open. I just wanted a doctor to evaluate me better”, he says.

But it was at the AMA that a health professional told Vinícius that he could look for the Instituto de Infectologia Emílio Ribas, a hospital in São Paulo that specializes in treating infectious diseases. On Monday (27), Vinícius followed this advice.

“At Emílio Ribas, they threw me in a room and a doctor came to talk to me. He made a tracking of where I was. He looked at my lesions and collected the crust of one of them and the secretion”, he says.

Vinícius explains that the doctor counted an average of 12 wounds all over his body, but only one of them, located on the hand, was protuberant and with secretion.

The material was sent for diagnosis of monkeypox and on the same day Vinícius went into isolation, even without having the result.

The definitive diagnosis for the suspect came on Wednesday (29). Since then, Vinícius has already received a visit from three health professionals from a UBS (Basic Health Unit), located in the region of his house, which is close to Ipiranga, in São Paulo.

“They came to look at the injuries, especially on the hand. They also gave me instructions on the best way to do isolation, they asked where I was in Europe, what I did, who I met,” he says.

The young man is isolated in his room. A scheme was set up to avoid infecting family members – he lives with his mother, two cats and, downstairs, his grandmother and godmother live. Objects such as cutlery and glasses, for example, are not shared.

So far, he doesn’t experience many symptoms. The injuries do not hurt, with the exception of one on the foot which, in some cases, causes some discomfort when stepping on the ground. At times, he feels fatigue and chills. “Sometimes I’m standing still and I feel very tired as if I’ve run a marathon.”

A question that still remains is the situation where the infection occurred. “I stayed in Europe for three weeks and went out a lot. I saw a lot of people”, she says.

But something could be an indicator. Vinícius says that a friend residing in Germany hosted him at his home and also tested positive for monkeypox. In the hypothesis pointed out by Vinícius, he and his friend were infected in the same place.

Even so, doubt reigns. “I even stopped to think if I could suspect when it was, but I have no idea.”

Now, Vinícius hopes to know when he will come out of isolation. At first, he would have a certificate of 15 days of work, but the doctor who treated him at Emílio Ribas said that the leave will be extended to 30 days.

“From what they say, I stop broadcasting when the last scab of the last wound falls, but they didn’t give me a prediction of when that will happen.”

unexpected reactions

Vinícius posted a positive diagnosis for monkeypox on Twitter. “I made that mistake,” jokes the marketing analyst.

After that, mixed reactions arose. “There were people making jokes, others desperate saying that this decade is not going to pass. Other people came to try to calm me down and wish me well”, she says.

Some asked the marketing analyst if he was present at certain events. Vinícius says that this happened because people wanted to know if they were at risk of having had contact with someone positive for the disease.

“People seemed more concerned [com varíola dos macacos] than with Covid”, he says.

He believes this concern is because monkeypox has links to physical symptoms, such as blisters that can appear on the skin and leave spots. “People were afraid of catching smallpox from the monkeys and getting snails on their faces, which at least didn’t happen to me.”