This is the first time that an infection with the lethal variant of monkeypox (MPOX) has been authenticated outside the African continent. A person living in the Stockholm region of Sweden has been diagnosed with the more contagious and dangerous clade 1 subtype of the MPOX virus, the Swedish Public Health Agency announced on Thursday.
“The affected person was infected during a stay in a region of Africa where there is a major outbreak of MPOX subtype clade 1,” Olivia Wigzell, acting head of the Swedish Public Health Agency, said at a press conference.
“It is likely that other cases will be recorded in Europe”
This has received care and recommendations in accordance with current regulations, assured Olivia Wigzell. “We believe that Sweden is well prepared to diagnose, isolate and treat people with COPD safely and effectively,” she added.
“The fact that a person is treated for MPOX in the country does not imply risks for the rest of the population,” the public health agency stressed in a statement.
The World Health Organization, however, said on Thursday that Europe is likely to see more imported cases of MPOX in the “coming days”. “The confirmation of MPOX of the clade 1 subtype in Sweden clearly reflects the interconnectedness of our world (…) It is likely that further imported cases of clade 1 will be recorded in the European region in the coming days and weeks,” the WHO said in a statement.
Highest level of global alert triggered
The WHO had on Wednesday triggered its highest level of international alert in the face of the resurgence of cases of mpox in Africa.
“Today, the emergency committee met and advised me that in their opinion, this constitutes a public health emergency of international concern. I have accepted that opinion,” WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference. WHO had taken the same decision in July 2022, when a mpox outbreak spread across the world, before lifting it in May 2023.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the mpox epidemic has caused 548 deaths since the beginning of the year and has now affected all the provinces of this country of around 100 million inhabitants.
