Thailand authorities have reported Asia's first case of the new, deadlier strain of mpox.
More than 1000 new mpox cases were reported in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the last week, as African health authorities asked for desperately needed vaccines to help fight its "growing" threat on the continent.
More than 2800 mpox cases have been reported across those countries in 2024 so far, with more than 500 deaths.
Thirteen African countries have outbreaks, including the previously unaffected Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda.
Now, Thailand's Department of Disease Control confirmed to local media that the country has its first case of the new, more transmissible strain of mpox — called clade 1.
According to the agency, the patient was a European man in his 60s who arrived in Bangkok from an unnamed African country on August 14.
"The test results confirm that he is infected with the Clade 1b strain of monkeypox, which is the first case diagnosed in Thailand, but this man is likely infected from an endemic country," Thongchai Keeratihattayakorn, director-general of the Department of Disease Control, told Reuters.
In Thailand, the Department of Disease Control said it had tracked down some 43 patients who were sitting in the rows near the unidentified man, and those who met him after he landed.
They would all be monitored for 21 days, the BBC reports.
Thailand was also requiring people travelling from 42 "risk countries" to test on arrival.
Mpox was transmitted through close contact, such as sex, skin-to-skin contact and talking or breathing close to another person – but it was nowhere near as infectious as other viruses such as Covid and measles, an epidemiologist told Breakfast this week.
Salim Abdool Karim said scientsists did not yet fully understand how changes to the genetic code led to the virus becoming more easily transmissible. (Source: Breakfast)
An epidemiologist told Breakfast that the new strain hadn't reached New Zealand but it was "only a matter of time" until it spread to most corners of the world.
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