This was the deadly contagion of Mpox in the largest hospital in Gipuzkoa

The Donostia University Hospital is one of the 'jewels' of Basque public healthcare. It has 1,000 beds, 30 operating rooms and 3,500 babies are born there every year. A health center pampered by the PNV that in December 2022 had to bow to the demands of the mutinous medical chiefs against a manager imposed by the Basque Government.

Almost four years later, the first death from the Monkeypox or Mpox virus has called into question basic criteria of hospital care. The deceased patient was 61 years old and at the beginning of last September he was admitted to the Donostia Hospital to undergo a laryngectomy to counteract the cancer he suffered. Barely a month later, he died infected with what was once called monkeypox. What happened between his admission and his death?

The Health Department of the Basque Government recognized yesterday that "the patient suffered from an advanced oncological disease and presented a highly debilitating clinical situation, factors that increase the risk of complications from any infection." However, the Basque public health service does not clarify why a cancer patient with a "highly debilitating clinical situation" was placed in a room next to another patient who had infectious symptoms and was being treated.

As EL MUNDO has been able to confirm, the two patients were admitted to the ENT area of ​​the aforementioned hospital. The cancer patient was waiting to be operated on after intense treatment that had not completely eliminated the cancer he suffered from. Next to him, the patient with an unidentified virus had already been treated with antibiotics.

Together, for days in the same room, the infected but not correctly diagnosed patient began to help his partner who was waiting to undergo surgery. A generous attitude of support that, presumably, facilitated the spread of the Monkeypox virus. "While they lived in the same room, no one knew that the latter carried the virus. The virus was detected in the index patient through routine tests designed to look for other types of infections, motivated by his admission," was the version used yesterday by the Basque Government after this death was revealed by Mpox.

The argument used by the Basque health authorities places the focus on the difficulties in detecting the Mpox virus. According to the Basque Government, the symptoms are "nonspecific" and appear in a window between 5 and 21 days after exposure. They also warned that the so-called "clinical picture" includes symptoms such as fever, headache, muscle pain, swollen lymph nodes and fatigue. After the fever and in an estimated period of between 1 and 5 days, the lesions and marks appear distributed throughout the body.

The Department of Health has not yet clarified when it detected that the "index" patient was detected and where his companion who had allegedly already been infected was located. Nor if the cancer patient finally underwent surgery on his larynx nor if when he left the Donostia hospital he was already suffering from the fatal symptoms of Mpox that finally caused his death.