The British Health Security Agency (UKHSA) announced on Wednesday, October 30, that it had detected a first case of infection in the country of the new variant of the mpox virus, causing a major epidemic in Africa.
The agency clarified that this “only confirmed human case of clade 1b mpox” had been detected in London and affected one person “who had recently traveled to African countries” affected by this variant. The health authorities specify in a press release that “The risk to the population remains low”.
A little over a week ago, a case of infection with this new variant was detected in Germany. Others have been reported in Sweden and several Asian countries.
Testing and vaccination
“All contacts of this person will be offered a test and a vaccine if necessary and will be informed of the additional care they will be given if they have symptoms or if the test is positive.”UKHSA continues.
she said she was working “in close collaboration” with the British Public Health Service (NHS) “and academic partners to determine the characteristics of the pathogen and further evaluate the risk to human health”.
Formerly called “monkeypox,” mpox is a viral disease that spreads from animals to humans, but also spreads between humans and causes fever, muscle aches, and skin lesions.
For several months, a new epidemic has affected Africa; The highest infection figures refer to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Burundi and Nigeria.
There are two concomitant epidemics: one caused by clade 1 in Central Africa, mainly affecting children; another, due to the new variant, clade 1b, which affects adults in the east of the DRC and neighboring countries. A vaccination campaign was launched in early October in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the country most affected by the virus in the world.
