New deadliest monkeypox strain puts WHO on alert

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned Thursday of the threat monkeypox poses to global health due to an outbreak of a new, more deadly strain of the virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRCongo).

The WHO, which calls the disease Mpox, said it had received reports of cases in 26 countries over the past month.

Mpox “remains a threat to global health,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference.

South Africa recently reported 20 cases, including three deaths, marking the country’s “first case since 2022.”

None of the patients had travelled abroad, “which suggests that confirmed cases represent a small percentage of the total number of cases and that community transmission continues,” he stressed.

Of particular concern is the situation in the DR Congo, where a new strain of the virus has been spreading since September.

The epidemic “shows no signs of slowing down,” Tedros added, while Rosamund Lewis, a WHO expert on monkeypox, stressed the organization was “very concerned” after 11,000 cases were reported, including 445 deaths, with children the worst affected.

“There is a risk that the virus will cross borders and continue to circulate because the borders with neighbouring countries are very porous,” Lewis said.

Mpox was first detected in humans in 1970, in what is now the DR Congo, with the Clade 1 subtype since then being confined mainly to West and Central African countries, with patients typically acquiring the infection from infected animals, such as by eating bush meat.

But in May 2022, Mpox infections emerged worldwide, primarily affecting homosexual and bisexual men. The subtype responsible was Clad II.

Since September last year, a new strain of Clade has been spreading in the DR Congo, an even more deadly one that is also transmitted sexually between homosexuals, with the epidemic starting among people engaged in prostitution.

Tests showed that it was a new variant, arising from a mutation in clade I, called clade Ib.

“The new strain is transmitted (…) so far exclusively from person to person,” said Rosamund Lewis.

The global monkeypox epidemic two years ago prompted the WHO to declare an international public health emergency in July 2022.

WHO ended this state of alert, the organization’s highest, in May 2023 but continues to recommend vigilance.

Monkeypox “is not going to go away (…) we live in an interconnected world and this virus can continue to spread,” warned Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s director of epidemic preparedness.