On Friday, Portugal’s General Directorate of Health announced 23 cases of “monkeypox,” an infectious disease that is endemic in Africa and has recently spread to Europe and North America.

All new cases were reported yesterday, Thursday, while the Portuguese Ministry of Health said: “The identified strain originated in West Africa and was the least virulent, and all patients are isolated at home and they are in a stable condition.”

More smallpox cases have been confirmed in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Spain and Sweden, as well as the US, Canada and Australia. Notably, this disease is usually non-fatal and causes symptoms such as fever, rash, and swollen lymph nodes, but the World Health Organization states that it “may lead to a number of medical complications.”

The World Health Organization has announced an emergency meeting of experts to discuss the monkeypox outbreak, and that the main topics of the meeting will be “transmission and spread of the disease between gay and bisexual men” and “the status of vaccines against the disease.”