The new, more dangerous variant of mpox may already be spreading in Europe, scientists warn, after the first case was reported in Europe on thursday.
Europe's top health agency said on Friday it was “highly likely” that more cases would emerge in the coming weeks. The agency urged people traveling to parts of Africa hit by the outbreak to consider getting vaccinated against the virus.
The mutated strain of mpoxknown as clade 1b, has rapidly spread from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to several neighboring countries, prompting the World Health Organization to declare a global health emergency.
While it was previously thought that the virus spread primarily through close contact with infected individuals who exhibited the characteristic pus-filled lesions, research has already shown that the virus may also spread asymptomatically, raising concerns that there may be hundreds or even thousands of undetected cases.
Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia, told The Telegraph it is “likely we already have infections in Britain”.
There have been sporadic cases of clade 2 mpox in the UK over the past two years. It is a milder version of the disease, which is usually spread through sexual contact and is most common among homosexual men.
According to Professor Hunter, because of the way the disease spreads, most people who become infected go to an STD clinic rather than their GP. In addition, a lack of proper sequencing means that potential cases of the more dangerous variant continue to go undetected.
“When a physician sees a patient in a clinic, there's no way he or she can tell whether it's clade 1b or 2 until the patient is sent for testing. So I think there are probably cases being missed here,” he said.