Monkeypox outbreak linked to Belgium fetish festival and adult sauna superspreader event in Spain

The surge in monkeypox cases across Europe have been linked to a Belgium fetish festival and a superspreader event at an adult sauna in Madrid, Spain.

Most of Spain's 30 cases have been associated with a sauna in the country's capital, according to officials. The region's health chief, Enrique Ruiz Escudero, told reporters that health officials detected a “notable proportion” of the European cases are in gay and bisexual men. While three cases in Belgium were linked to fetish festival Darklands in Antwerp.

The disease, which is mainly spread by wild animals and is most common in remote parts of Central and West Africa, has also been found in the UK, with the UK Health Security Agency identifying 20 cases so far. Its chief medical adviser Dr Susan Hopkins told the BBC's Sunday Morning programme: "We are detecting more cases on a daily basis."

Read more: Monkeypox: What are the symptoms and how does it spread?

As of Sunday (May 22), Israel and Switzerland are the latest countries to confirm cases of monkeypox, taking the total number of countries reporting outbreaks to 14. Other incidences of the disease have also been recorded across Western Europe, Australia, the US and Canada.

It comes as Portugal's first 14 cases were from males with the same sexual orientation. In Belgium three patients with the disease were reported to have attended an Antwerp fetish festival named Darklands, according to the Daily Telegraph.

The festival describes itself as a place where “various tribes in the gay fetish community (leather, rubber, army, skinhead, puppies...) come together to create a unique spectacle of fetish brotherhood”. On the festival's website however, a statement reads: "There’s reason to assume that the virus has been