Faced with the resurgence of the MPOX epidemic in the world, the Pasteur Institute said on Monday that it was ready to "test and vaccinate patients at the request of the French authorities", who have at this stage recorded "no contamination" on the territory.
"Since this weekend, after activation by the General Directorate of Health (DGS), the emergency biological intervention unit (CIBU) of the Pasteur Institute has been analyzing, at the request of the health authorities, suspect samples," the Institute declared in a press release.
The Pasteur Institute medical center, specialized in travel medicine, which had treated patients with MPOX during the previous epidemic in 2022, "triggered its internal protocol allowing it to test patients presenting symptoms suggestive of MPOX (...) in optimal safety conditions."
It is also "available to health authorities to vaccinate within its walls all people from the populations targeted by the health recommendations currently being re-evaluated," he assured.
"This is a serious health situation," commented Yasmine Belkaid, director general of the Pasteur Institute, quoted in the press release. "Today, we are ready to test and vaccinate patients at the request of the authorities."
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal announced on Friday that the French health system was being placed on "maximum alert" after an initial meeting with the ministers responsible for the issue.
A new meeting was held at Matignon on Monday afternoon. "To date, no contamination by clade 1 has yet been recorded in France," the government specified in a "health update" published Monday evening on its website and social networks.
The government details the symptoms and modes of contamination and recalls that clade 2 has been "circulating discreetly in France since the 2022 epidemic, with a monthly number of reported cases varying between 12 and 26 between January and June 2024".
It also specifies the number of the "Mpox info service" (08 01 90 80 69), a free telephone information service "open every day from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m."
In an interview with La Tribune Dimanche, the resigning Minister Delegate for Health Frederic Valletoux said he expected "sporadic cases" of the new variant of mpox "to appear, and probably soon" in France.
On Thursday, Sweden announced that it had recorded a case of clade 1b subtype, the same strain that has appeared in the Democratic Republic of Congo since September 2023, more deadly and virulent than clade 2, endemic in West Africa. A case was also announced in Asia, in Pakistan.
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