SAO PAULO, Brazil — Brazil has logged its first mpox death of 2026, but officials are not treating the surge in cases as an outbreak, according to a public health institute.
Brazil has recorded 1,009 confirmed infections of the virus this year, according to a report published Friday by the Fiocruz Institute, which is affiliated with the health ministry.
The death was in Rio de Janeiro, where positive cases between September and November doubled compared to those recorded during the rest of the year.
The government has stepped up surveillance measures and purchased 25,000 new doses of an mpox vaccine, but is not currently treating the rise in cases as an outbreak because the number remains "significantly lower than the historic peak experienced in 2022," Fiocruz said.
Mpox, which is spread by a virus from the same family as smallpox, causes fever, muscle aches and large boil-like skin lesions, and can be deadly.
It can be transmitted to humans by animals but can also be passed between people through close physical contact.
In 2022 and 2024, the World Health Organization declared mpox a Public Health Emergency of International Concern due to its rapid spread in certain countries.
The majority of cases in Brazil this year have been recorded in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro -- two of the three most populous states in the country of 214 million people.