After the maximum alert issued on Wednesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Thursday that other imported cases of mpox were likely to be detected soon in Europe, after the reporting in Sweden of a first case of a more contagious and dangerous variant of this disease which has caused at least 548 deaths since the beginning of the year in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the most affected country.
“It is likely that further imported cases of clade 1 (virus variant) will be recorded in the European region in the coming days and weeks,” the WHO European branch said in a statement.
European countries ‘must prepare’
Countries in the European Union and the European Economic Area (EEA) should prepare for a surge in cases of COPD, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said on Friday. The agency “recommends that health authorities maintain a high level of preparedness planning (…) to enable rapid detection and response to any new cases,” it said in a statement.
Its previous communication on the subject, issued in mid-July, indicated an “overall risk of infection by the MPOX virus considered low for men who have sex with men, and very low for the whole population of the EU/EEA”.
4,272 cases since 2022
According to the data released in this press release, France was the second country in Europe to have recorded the most cases of monkeypox since 2022, with 4,272 cases, behind Spain (8,084 cases) and ahead of Germany (3,850 cases).
Despite this, French health authorities do not seem worried. In a statement updated Tuesday, the Ministry of Health reported “mostly mild” cases and that no deaths have been reported in France since the start of the epidemic.
On Friday, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal held a situation update with ministers Catherine Vautrin and Frédéric Valletoux. At the end of this meeting, the resigning head of government placed the French health system in a “state of maximum vigilance”.
He indicated that “new information and recommendation measures” will be introduced for people traveling to risk areas, and contacted the health authorities so that they can decide on “updating the vaccination recommendations” relating to “target populations.”
A “donation of vaccines to the most affected countries” has also been decided, at the request of Emmanuel Macron, also affirmed the resigning Prime Minister, who will hold a new update on Monday.
107 cases between January and June
“The number of cases of MPOX reported every month in France since the beginning of 2024 has significantly decreased compared to the number of cases reported in 2022, however the virus continues to circulate quietly,” the ministry emphasizes.
Between January 1 and June 30, 2024, 107 cases of monkeypox virus infection were reported in Public Health Francefive of which were not biologically confirmed. More than a third (42) were in Île-de-France, 30 in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (including 28 in Rhône), 3 in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, and 1 in Grand Est. “An increase in the number of cases was noted in April-May in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and in May-June in Île-de-France,” the government agency said. The vast majority of those infected are men.
What is mpox?
MPOX, formerly known as “monkeypox”, was first discovered in humans in 1970 in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), with the spread of the clade 1 subtype (of which the new variant, “clade 1b”, is a mutation). Patients are generally contaminated by infected animals, or from person to person by droplet – close contact or sexual contact. Symptoms are similar to those of smallpox, but less severe: fever, fatigue, then the appearance of spots and lesions.
A total of 38,465 cases of the disease, formerly known as monkeypox, have been reported in 16 African countries since January 2022, with 1,456 deaths, including a 160% increase in the number of cases in 2024 compared to the previous year, according to data released last week by the African Union’s health agency, Africa CDC.
