Mpox 2024 hotspots: Map shows all countries where cases of new strain have been confirmed – including the UK

Britain has announced the first case of a new deadly strain of MPox that has swept through several African countries, while MailOnline reveals all the countries where the virus has now spread.

The unnamed patient was on holiday in an African country currently experiencing an outbreak earlier this month.

They developed flu-like symptoms on October 21 and developed a rash three days later.

In search of medical advice, the case was flagged to the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) as possibly the new source of concern for mpox, called ‘clade 1b’.

Laboratory tests confirmed the patient has the disease and they are being treated by specialist staff at the Royal Free Hospital in London.

No further details are known about the patient’s condition.

UKHSA said they are tracing ‘fewer than 10’ people believed to have had close contact with the patient during the potential period he was infectious.

Officials do not currently suspect the patient was contagious during the flight back from the as-yet-unnamed African country where they contracted the disease.

A map showing the African countries where the Clade I strain is confirmed

This graph shows the number of confirmed cases in England since January 2023

It is currently unknown how the patient acquired the new MPOX variant, which can kill around one in 20 adults, although skin-to-skin contact is suspected.

Officials say they still consider the threat clade 1b poses to the public to be “low.”

In July, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared an ongoing MPox outbreak in several Central African countries a “public health emergency of international concern.”

This is the same name the WHO gave to Covid in late January 2020, just a few weeks before the virus spread across the world, and some scientists have likened the current outbreak to the ‘early days of HIV’.

So what exactly is the new strain – and how concerned should you be?

Since the outbreak began, Clade 1b has spread through Central Africa, killing at least a thousand people.

Countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo have been hit particularly hard, with cases also seen in Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya.

The case of Britain now means that the country joins countries such as Sweden, Thailand, India and Germany in having business outside Africa.

Officials say they still consider the threat clade 1b poses to the British public to be ‘low’

Clade 1b is considered much deadlier than the clade 2 strain, which spread worldwide in 2022 and mainly affected gay and bisexual men.

The strain is estimated to cause death in about 5 percent of adults who contract the disease, but in children the mortality rate is as high as one in ten.

Infections have also been linked to an alarming increase in miscarriage rates among pregnant women.

By comparison, Clade 2 only killed about one in 500 people who caught it.

However, experts say the death rate of clade 1b from Central Africa is unlikely to be repeated in developed countries such as Britain, due to greater access to higher quality healthcare.

Urgent guidance for UK healthcare workers will remind them that clade I mpox is a pathogen of highest public health concern and that all suspected cases should be alerted through official channels.

Mpox, also known as monkeypox, spreads between people through skin-to-skin contact.

This can be through sex, or simple touch, such as when caring for children, but it can also spread through secondary contact, such as sharing towels or bedding.

It causes characteristic lumpy lesions, as well as fever, pain and fatigue.

However, in a small number of cases it can enter the blood, lungs and other parts of the body, where it becomes life-threatening.

The infection is mainly transmitted through close personal contact with someone who is infected or through contact with contaminated materials such as bedding.

Anyone with symptoms should continue to avoid contact with other people while symptoms persist.

It can also cause fever, headache, muscle aches, back pain, low energy, and swollen lymph nodes.

UKHSA also said they are securing more supplies of MPox vaccines as part of the jab’s further rollout.

Current MPOX vaccines, which are designed to work against smallpox, a close relative of the MPOX virus, were used against the milder variant during the 2022 outbreak.

But they have yet to be widely tested against the more potent clade 1b strain.

Diseases such as clade 1b mpox are treated in so-called ‘high consequence infectious diseases’ units in the NHS, such as those at The Royal Free.

The Royal Free treated Ebola patients in this department in 2015.

Dr. Brian Ferguson, an expert in immunology at the University of Cambridge, said the MPox situation is worrying in part because of the number of children infected with it.

’40 percent of the cases concern children under the age of five. “Because MPOX disease is more severe in immunocompromised individuals, it is also concerning that the current outbreak is occurring in a region where HIV prevalence is relatively high but access to antiretroviral medications is poor,” he said.

“There are further concerns about the lack of access to vaccines and a slow global response to vaccine production and distribution.

“Although effective vaccines exist, there are not enough doses and they are not getting to where they are needed.

Single-dose vials of the Jynneos mpox vaccine are seen from a cooler at a vaccination site in Brooklyn, New York, on August 29, 2022, as the disease swept across the United States

‘WHO is working to address these issues, but this will require greater international efforts to produce and deliver vaccines.’

Sanjaya Senanayake, an infectious disease expert at the Australian National University, said it would be a mistake to view the outbreak as an Africa-only issue.

“Although the epicenter of this new outbreak is the Democratic Republic of Congo, it has spread to a number of East African countries, underscoring the pandemic potential with so many major airports in the region,” he said.

But he added there was hope that MPox vaccines could turn things around.

‘Two doses of a vaccine are very effective in preventing the infection, although this tends to be in adults rather than children, which was the case in most cases; Therefore, the announcement by WHO that this is a public health emergency of international concern will hopefully leverage global resources to contain and ultimately end the outbreak in Africa.”

Dr. Meera Chand, deputy director of the UK’s Health Security Agency, said the current threat to Britain from the new MPox strain was “currently considered low”.

But she added: ‘However, plans are underway to prepare for any cases we might encounter in Britain.

‘This includes ensuring that doctors are aware and able to identify cases quickly, that rapid testing is available and that protocols are developed for the safe clinical care of people who have the infection and preventing onward transmission .’

WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement in July: ‘The emergence of a new clade of mpox, its rapid spread in eastern DRC, and the reporting of cases in several neighboring countries are very worrying.

‘In addition to outbreaks of other mpox clades in the DRC and other countries in Africa, it is clear that a coordinated international response is needed to stop these outbreaks and save lives.’

The WHO and the NHS recommend a vaccine within four days of contact with someone who has the virus or within a maximum of fourteen days if there are no symptoms.

Healthcare workers and men who have sex with men are advised to get a vaccine even if they have not had exposure to MPox.

There are no immediate treatments available with clinicians instead focusing on supporting a patient to help their body fight the virus.