A new, more infectious strain of the potentially deadly mpox virus has been found in Germany for the first time, health chiefs in the country have said.
The Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Germany’s disease control centre, said on Tuesday the risk to the wider population was low but it “is monitoring the situation very closely and adjusting its recommendations if necessary”.
It said the carrier of the clade Ib form of the virus was infected abroad but gave no other details, including where the case was being treated.
The first case of the mpox virus variant outside Africa was confirmed in Sweden in August, while one was also reported in Thailand and another in India earlier this month.
At least 1,000 deaths have been reported across Africa as of last week, prompting the World Health Organisation (WHO) to declare the increasing spread of the disease a global health emergency for the second time in two years.
Most of the cases have been recorded in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which has seen a total of 5,399 cases and 25 deaths in 2024 up to 15 September.
Almost 800 cases of mpox have been confirmed there in the past four weeks, according to WHO, but 18 out of 55 African countries are battling outbreaks of the illness.
The total number of suspected cases in Africa since the beginning of the year now stands at 42,438, with 8,113 confirmed as mpox, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
Mpox mostly spreads via close contact with infected people, including through sex.
Common symptoms include a skin rash or pus-filled lesions which can last two to four weeks. It also can cause fever, headaches, muscle aches, back pain, low energy and swollen lymph nodes. Most cases are mild but it can be deadly.
Earlier this year, scientists discovered a new form of the disease, clade 1b, that they said may cause milder symptoms but spreads more easily through close contact, which was traced to a Congolese mining town.
Mpox is a viral disease that occurs mostly in central and western Africa. It was first identified in laboratory monkeys, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Currently there is no treatment approved specifically for mpox virus infections, according to the CDC.
However, a two-dose vaccine has been developed to protect against the virus.
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The CDC says that for most patients with mpox who have intact immune systems and don’t have a skin disease, supportive care and pain control will help them recover without medical treatment.
There have been a small number of cases of mpox in the UK since 2022, the NHS said on its website, and the risk of catching it in the UK is low.