The United Kingdom Health Security Agency indicated this Monday (8) that a new variant of mpox was identified in England in a person who had recently traveled to Asia.
The agency continues to assess the significance of this variant, which has elements of both mpox subtypes: the more severe clade 1 and clade 2.
Smallpox is caused by a virus in the same family as smallpox. It mainly manifests itself as high fever and the appearance of skin lesions, and can be fatal.
“Our genomic testing allowed us to detect this new mpox variant,” Katy Sinka, head of sexually transmitted infections at the agency, said in a statement.
“Although infection with the mpox virus is mild for many, it can be serious,” stressed Katy Sinka, recalling that vaccination is an effective way to protect against serious forms of the disease.
In September, the Director General of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, announced that mpox no longer constituted an international health emergency, arguing among other things the decrease in deaths and cases in several African countries. A state of emergency had been declared a year earlier.
First identified in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1970, mpox remained confined for a long time in certain African countries.
However, in 2022, it began to spread to the rest of the world, particularly to developed countries where the virus had never circulated.
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