A sudden and unexplained blackout brought large parts of Spain and Portugal to a standstill on Monday, severely disrupting public services, transport, and healthcare systems across the Iberian Peninsula. With no electricity, internet, or mobile service for hours, doctors and pharmacists were forced to revert to manual methods to treat patients and protect vital medicines.

Hospitals relied on emergency generators to continue delivering essential care, including emergency surgeries and time-critical treatments. But for many family doctors, the outage meant suspending most services. At a clinic in Lisbon, Dr. Tiago Villanueva described scenes reminiscent of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Everything stopped. We tried doing things manually, writing prescriptions by hand like it was 30 years ago,” said Villanueva, who also heads the European Union of General Practitioners. With visibility dropping as the sun set and no clear instructions from health authorities, staff eventually had no choice but to send patients home.

A major concern during the outage was the safety of vaccines and temperature-sensitive medicines. Power failures threatened cold-chain storage systems, putting vaccine stocks such as those for measles, tuberculosis, and other childhood diseases at risk.

Dr. João Paulo Magalhães, vice president of Portugal’s Public Health Doctors Association, warned that many vaccines may have become unusable. “Thousands of refrigerators need continuous power. Probably, there are some vaccines that are no longer viable,” he said.

In Terrassa, near Barcelona, hospital pharmacist Jordi Nicolás said his team managed to safeguard their drug inventory using hospital backup power. However, he noted that many Spanish pharmacies now rely heavily on automation. “There are a lot of robots,” said Nicolás, who is also vice president of the Spanish Society of Hospital Pharmacists. “We had to find manual workarounds to access critical medicines.”

The blackout also exposed vulnerabilities in the digital infrastructure of healthcare. Without power, pharmacists and clinics lost access to electronic medical records, making it nearly impossible to confirm prescriptions or track patient histories.

“This situation highlights the urgent need for contingency planning,” Nicolás said. Magalhães echoed the sentiment, adding that the disruption was significant and could have had serious consequences if the blackout had continued for more than a day.

While power was largely restored by late Monday evening, healthcare professionals across both countries are calling for more robust emergency systems to safeguard patient care in future crises.

“We need better ways to communicate with health authorities during events like this,” Villanueva said. “I’m even considering buying a radio — it was the only thing that worked.”

Switzerland has confirmed its first case of a new, highly contagious strain of mpox, marking the latest European country to report an infection of the virus. The case, detected in a person who had recently traveled to Uganda, follows a rise in mpox infections in Central Africa, where the strain emerged in 2023.

The strain, known as clade Ib, has been responsible for thousands of infections in Central Africa, particularly in countries like Burundi and Uganda. This variant is believed to cause more severe illness, with a higher risk of death, especially among children. Health experts are also concerned that it spreads more easily than previous strains.

Mpox, a viral disease that can cause fever, headache, swollen lymph nodes, and a characteristic rash, spreads primarily through close skin-to-skin contact. In addition to the Central African region, the new strain has been detected in several countries outside of Africa, including the United States, Canada, Brazil, China, and parts of Europe.

Switzerland’s public health agency reported that the infected individual was in isolation, and no further risk to the public has been identified. However, the agency advised anyone with symptoms to seek medical advice immediately. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) confirmed the infection as part of a broader trend of rising cases in Europe linked to travel from regions experiencing active outbreaks.

The United Kingdom has also seen a number of clade Ib cases, with the most recent infection reported in April. Notably, this case was not linked to recent travel, suggesting possible local transmission. The UK Health Security Agency confirmed that no further cases were found among close contacts, and the public risk remains low. The UK has prepared for the possibility of more cases by acquiring over 150,000 doses of the mpox vaccine.

Germany has reported eight cases of the new strain, with the most recent occurring in February. Belgium and France have seen smaller numbers of cases, with infections linked to travel from Central Africa. Sweden, the first European country to report a case in 2024, remains the only nation with a confirmed infection tied to the new strain.

The World Health Organization declared a global public health emergency in August 2024, urging European health authorities to prepare for potential cases. While the risk to the general public remains low, health officials continue to monitor the situation closely, urging travelers to avoid areas with ongoing outbreaks and to seek medical advice if they develop symptoms.

As the outbreak spreads, the situation highlights the challenges of containing contagious diseases across borders, especially as global travel continues to increase.