Sweden has confirmed its first case of the clade I strain of mpox, the first case to be diagnosed outside of Africa. The news comes after the World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Wednesday that the situation has been deemed a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).
According to a statement from the Public Health Agency of Sweden, the individual caught the infection during travel to a part of Africa that is currently dealing with a “major outbreak”, before returning to Sweden. State epidemiologist Magnus Gisslén confirmed that the patient has received medical care.
The clade I strain of mpox differs from the clade II strain that spread to dozens of countries – including Sweden – and was declared a PHEIC back in 2022, in that it’s considered more likely to cause severe disease.
Mpox is a viral infection that causes symptoms like fever, headache, and muscle aches, which later progress to a rash that can affect skin anywhere on the body. This typically develops into blisters that can be itchy or painful. Complications can include secondary skin infections, pneumonia, eye infections, and sepsis. While most people will make a full recovery within about four weeks, the very young, pregnant people, and those with compromised immune systems are at particular risk of severe disease that can be fatal.
The disease is spread through close contact with an infected person. In the clade II outbreak that began in 2022, a major route of transmission has been sexual contact, with men who have sex with men emerging as a particularly at-risk group.
Clade I viruses can also spread this way, but authorities are equally concerned about spread via close contact within households, including to children. A person can spread mpox until the rash has completely healed.
Swedish authorities stressed that the country is ready to “diagnose, isolate and treat people with mpox safely,” and say the case does not represent a significant risk to the general public.
“This case does not require any additional infection control measures in itself, but we take the outbreak of clade I mpox very seriously,” Gisslén said. “We are closely monitoring the outbreak and we are continuously assessing whether new measures are needed.”
Numerous outbreaks of clade I mpox in Africa this year – including in Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda, which have never reported mpox before – led to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) declaring a continental public health emergency earlier this week. The agency suggested that cases are being underreported, hiding the true scale of the issue, but said suspected cases in 2024 alone have risen to about 17,000.
WHO figures show that there have so far been over 2,100 confirmed cases of mpox across 12 countries in Africa this year, and 13 deaths. This already exceeds the numbers from the whole of 2023. The latest strain of the virus emerged in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which has been particularly hard-hit by mpox over the years, but its rapid spread to so many other countries in recent months has caused concern.
There are two approved vaccines for mpox, which can be used as both preventatives and as post-exposure prophylaxis if given soon after contact with an infected person, but supplies to many parts of Africa affected by the virus have been insufficient. In collaboration with the European Commission, Africa CDC has just secured over 215,000 doses of vaccine to be distributed where the need is greatest.
Meanwhile, other countries in Europe and elsewhere will continue to monitor the virus. Experts say the spread of this strain of virus outside Africa is not unexpected – albeit, as immunologist Dr Brian Ferguson told Science Media Centre, it is “clearly a concerning development.”
Source Link: Mpox Detected In Sweden, The First European Case In The Latest Outbreak
