On Wednesday, Thailand reported a suspected case of a new and more dangerous strain of mpox, which the World Health Organization has declared a global public health emergency. The patient, a European traveler who arrived in Thailand from an African country, is being monitored, according to Thongchai Keeratihattayakorn, head of Thailand’s Department of Disease Control.
While laboratory tests are ongoing to confirm the strain, officials believe it is Clade 1. The infected individual has been quarantined in a hospital. “We confirmed the patient has mpox, and it’s definitely not Clade 2,” Thongchai told AFP.
“We are confident it is the Clade 1 variant, but we need to wait for final lab results, which should be ready in two days.”
Mpox cases and deaths have been rising in Africa, with outbreaks reported in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda since July. The disease, caused by a virus transmitted from infected animals and spread between humans through close physical contact, leads to fever, muscle aches, and large boil-like skin lesions.
Though mpox has been known for decades, the recent surge in cases has been driven by a more deadly and transmissible strain, Clade 1b, which has a fatality rate of about 3.6%, with children being more vulnerable, according to the WHO. Discovered in 1958 in research monkeys in Denmark, the virus was previously called monkeypox.
The Democratic Republic of Congo has reported over 16,000 cases and 500 deaths this year. On August 15, Sweden confirmed the first Clade 1 case outside of Africa.
