The WHO warned on Thursday, August 15, 2024, of the risk of other imported cases of mpox in Europe after a first case reported in Sweden of a more contagious and dangerous variant.
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This variant has caused at least 548 deaths since the start of 2024 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the most affected country. "It is likely that further imported cases of clade 1 will be recorded in Europe in the coming days and weeks.", said the WHO's European branch.
Stockholm man with MPOX
On Wednesday, the WHO activated its maximum alert level in the face of the resurgence of mpox in Africa. Since January 2022, 38,465 cases of this disease, formerly called monkeypox, have been recorded in 16 African countries, resulting in 1,456 deaths, with an increase of 1,60% cases in 2024 compared to the previous year, according to Africa CDC.
On Thursday, the Swedish Public Health Agency announced that a person in Stockholm had been diagnosed with MPOX clade 1, a first outside Africa. "The person was infected during a stay in Africa", explained Olivia Wigzell, interim head of the Swedish agency.
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The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) assesses this risk as very low at present. WHO has stressed the importance of not stigmatising travellers or affected areas, stressing the need to cooperate to control the spread of the virus. In the DRC, "15,664 potential cases and 548 deaths have been recorded since the beginning of the year", declared the Congolese Minister of Health, Samuel-Roger Kamba, on Thursday.
This variant of MPOX results in the appearance of skin rashes all over the body.
As of August 3, Africa CDC had recorded 455 deaths and 14,479 infections in 25 of the DRC's 26 provinces. The United States announced the donation of 50,000 doses of the Jynneos vaccine to the DRC to support the response to the epidemic.
Bavarian Nordic said it was ready to produce up to 10 million doses by 2025. MPOX, a viral disease transmitted from animals to humans and through close physical contact, caused a global epidemic in 2022, mainly affecting homosexual and bisexual men, with around 140 deaths out of 90,000 cases.
The current outbreak, centered in the DRC, is caused by clade 1 and its more dangerous variant, clade 1b, with an estimated mortality rate of 3.6%. Clade 1b causes generalized rashes, while previous strains mainly affected the mouth, face, or genitals.
MPOX was first diagnosed in humans in 1970 in the DRC, where it remains mainly limited to West and Central Africa, with infections generally occurring through contact with infected animals.
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