The WHO warned on Thursday that other imported cases of MPOX were likely to be detected soon in Europe after the reporting in Sweden of a first case of a more contagious and dangerous variant of this disease which has caused at least 548 deaths since the beginning of the year in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the most affected country.
“It is likely that further imported cases of clade 1 (variant, editor’s note) will be recorded in the European region in the coming days and weeks,” the European branch of the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a statement.
The organization had triggered its highest level of alert internationally on Wednesday in the face of the resurgence of cases of MPOX on the African continent.
A total of 38,465 cases of the disease, formerly known as monkeypox or simian pox, have been reported in 16 African countries since January 2022, with 1,456 deaths, including a 160% increase in the number of cases in 2024 compared to the previous year, according to data released last week by the African Union’s health agency, Africa CDC.
And on Thursday, the Swedish Public Health Agency announced that a person living in the Stockholm area had been diagnosed with the more contagious and dangerous clade 1 subtype of the COPD virus, a first outside Africa.
“The affected person was infected during a stay in a region of Africa where there is a major outbreak of MPOX subtype clade 1,” Olivia Wigzell, acting head of the Swedish agency, explained during a press conference.
The agency assured in a statement that the fact that “a person is being treated for COPD in the country does not imply a risk for the rest of the population.”
Very low risk
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control currently considers this risk to be very low, she added.
The agency told AFP in a message that it was the MPOX variant of the subtype clade 1b, which has been experiencing a resurgence in the DRC since September 2023.
In this country of around 100 million inhabitants, all provinces are now affected by the epidemic.
For the WHO, “it is imperative that we do not stigmatize travelers or countries/regions.”
“Only by working together, sharing data and taking necessary public health measures can we control the spread of this virus,” added the organization, which believes it is crucial to avoid travel restrictions and border closures.
According to the latest epidemiological report, “our country has recorded 15,664 potential cases and 548 deaths since the beginning of the year,” Congolese Health Minister Samuel-Roger Kamba said on Thursday.
As of August 3, Africa CDC had recorded 455 deaths and 14,479 infections in 25 of the DRC’s 26 provinces.
The provinces of South Kivu, North Kivu, Tshopo (east), Equateur, North Ubangi, Tshuapa, Mongala (north) and Sankuru (center) are the most affected, according to the minister.
Through international mobilization, “we are activating all the necessary mechanisms to identify and treat cases” free of charge, Mr. Kamba stressed.
More dangerous viruses
According to a statement from the US Department of Health and Human Services released Wednesday, “Vaccination will be a critical part of the response to this outbreak. To support this effort, the United States is donating 50,000 doses of the Food and Drug Administration-approved Jynneos vaccine to the DRC.”
Danish pharmaceutical company Bavarian Nordic, whose shares jumped on the stock market on Thursday, said it was ready to produce up to 10 million doses of vaccines by 2025.
MPOX is a viral disease that spreads from animals to humans, but is also transmitted through close physical contact with a person infected with the virus.
By 2022, a global outbreak, carried by clade 2, had spread to about 100 countries where the disease was not endemic, affecting mostly homosexual and bisexual men. The outbreak had caused some 140 deaths out of about 90,000 cases.
The current epidemic, which started in the DRC, has its specificities, first of all a more contagious and dangerous virus. It is caused by clade 1 and by an even more dangerous variant, clade 1b. Its mortality rate is estimated at 3.6%.
Clade 1b causes rashes all over the body, whereas previous strains were characterized by rashes and lesions localized to the mouth, face or genitals.
MPOX was first diagnosed in humans in 1970 in what is now the DRC (formerly Zaire), with the spread of the clade 1 subtype (of which the new variant is a mutation), mainly limited since then to countries in western and central Africa, with patients generally being contaminated by infected animals.