WASHINGTON, Nov 1 – Health officials in Britain have detected the country’s first confirmed human case of a new strain of mpox that has been spreading throughout Africa, United Press International reported.
The UK Health Security Agency announced the detection of the Clade Ib mpox infection in a statement on Wednesday, noting that the “risk to the UK population remains low.”
The patient was not identified, but the health agency said the person had recently travelled to African nations seeing community spread of the disease.
Close contacts with the patient are being reached by the agency and partner organizations for testing and vaccination as needed, it said.
“We are working rapidly to trace close contacts and reduce the risk of any potential spread,” Susan Hopkins, chief medical adviser at UKHSA, said. “In accordance with established protocols, investigations are underway to learn how the individual acquired the infection and to assess whether there are any further associated cases.”
Mpox, previously called monkeypox, is a viral illness transmitted through close contact with an infected person.
Common symptoms include a skin rash or mucosal lesions, which can be accompanied by fever, headache, muscle aches, back pain, low energy and swollen lymph nodes. It can be fatal in some cases, and there are vaccines.
Britain experienced an outbreak of mpox in 2022.
As of July of that year, there were 1,517 confirmed cases of the virus, with a high proportion of those infected being London residents, primarily men who have sex with other men.
Clade Ib mpox is a different strain than the one responsible for the 2022 outbreak and is currently spreading in central and eastern Africa.
