Sweden has registered Europe’s first case of the more dangerous variant of mpox which is spreading rapidly in Africa, after the WHO declared a global public health emergency.
“We have now […] had confirmation that we have one case in Sweden of the more grave type of mpox, the one called Clade I,” Health and Social Affairs Minister Jakob Forssmed told a press conference on Thursday.
Sweden’s Public Health Agency said: “It is the first case caused by clade I to be diagnosed outside the African continent.”
The announcement came after the World Health Organisation on Wednesday declared mpox a global public health emergency for the second time in two years, following an outbreak of clade 1 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that has quickly spread to neighbouring countries.
Clade 1 was likely to be linked to “a higher rise of a more severe course of disease and higher mortality,” the Swedish public health agency said.
The patient caught the virus during a visit to “the part of Africa where there is a major outbreak of mpox clade I,” said Magnus Gisslen, a state epidemiologist.(Telegraph)