Thailand confirms Asia’s first known case of new mpox strain

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared a global public health emergency over Clade 1b, a strain that can be transmitted through routine contact, which causes death in about 3.6 percent of cases.

The strain has driven a surge in cases in Africa, where outbreaks have been reported in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda since July, killing more than 500 people so far, according to the WHO.

Thongchai Keeratihattayakorn, director-general of the Department of Disease Control, said the patient, who arrived in the country on August 14, was “likely infected from an endemic country”, which was not identified.

The department said it was monitoring 43 asymptomatic people who had been in close contact with the patient for a total of 21 days.

It instructed anyone travelling to Thailand from 42 “risk countries” to register and undergo testing on arrival in the country.

This is the second reported case of the new variant outside Africa, with the first confirmed in Sweden.

While the WHO has raised the alarm over Clade 1b, urging manufacturers to ramp up production of vaccines, it stressed on Tuesday that the outbreak is not another COVID-19, noting that much is already known about how to control the virus.

An earlier outbreak of mpox in 2022 was linked to a milder variant, known as Clade 2, endemic in West Africa. It caused about 140 deaths and 90,000 cases, mostly affecting gay and bisexual men.

Thailand has detected 800 cases of mpox Clade 2 since 2022 but had not found any case of the more contagious Clade 1 or Clade 1b variants so far.

The disease – caused by a virus transmitted by infected animals but passed from human to human through close physical contact – causes fever, muscular aches and large boil-like skin lesions.