In the first such case, a 36-year-old man in Italy has simultaneously tested positive for monkeypox, Covid-19 and HIV, media reports said.
According to the Daily Mail, scientists have reported this as the first known case of a person testing positive for these viruses, all at once.
The man began to develop a series of symptoms — including fatigue, fever, and a sore throat — nine days after returning from a trip to Spain earlier this year.
He spent five days in Spain from June 16 to 20, during which he admitted to having unprotected sex with men. On July 2, the man tested positive for Covid-19, according to a case study report published in the Journal of Infection.
A rash started to develop on his left arm on the afternoon of the same day. The following day, small, painful vesicles surrounded by a rash appeared on his torso, lower limbs, face and glutes, the report said.
By July 5, the vesicles had further spread and evolved into pustules – small bumps on the skin — at which point the man went to the emergency department at the San Marco University Hospital in Catania, Italy and was subsequently transferred to the Infectious Diseases unit. There, he was tested for monkeypox and subsequently returned a positive result.
The patient was also screened for multiple STIs. He tested positive for HIV-1, and the researchers said that “given his preserved CD4 count, we could assume that the infection was relatively recent”.
After recovering from Covid-19 and monkeypox, the patient was discharged from the hospital on July 11 and sent home to isolate. By this stage, his skin lesions had healed, after crusting over, leaving a small scar.
