More contagious mpox strain reaches Europe as Sweden reports first case

Sweden has registered Europe’s first case of the more dangerous variant of mpox which is spreading rapidly in Africa, after the WHO declared a global public health emergency.

“We have now […]  had confirmation that we have one case in Sweden of the more grave type of mpox, the one called Clade 1,” Health and Social Affairs Minister Jakob Forssmed told a press conference on Thursday.

Sweden’s Public Health Agency said: “It is the first case caused by clade 1 to be diagnosed outside the African continent.”

The announcement came after the World Health Organisation on Wednesday declared mpox a global public health emergency for the second time in two years, following an outbreak of clade 1 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that has quickly spread to neighbouring countries.

Clade 1 was likely to be linked to “a higher rise of a more severe course of disease and higher mortality,” the Swedish public health agency said.

The patient caught the virus during a visit to “the part of Africa where there is a major outbreak of mpox clade 1,” said Magnus Gisslen, a state epidemiologist.

The patient “has received care,” he said, without giving further details of the person’s condition.

The public health agency said that Sweden “has a preparedness to diagnose, isolate and treat people with mpox safely”.

“The fact that a patient with mpox is treated in the country does not affect the risk to the general population, a risk that the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) currently considers very low,” it said.

Mpox is primarily spread through close contact, such as sex, skin-to-skin contact and talking or breathing close to another person.

It causes a characteristic lumpy rash with pus-filled lesions, fever, aches, and pains. It has also been linked to dangerous complications for pregnant women including miscarriage.

There are two main types of mpox, known as clade 1 and clade 2. While clade 2 caused a public health emergency in 2022, it was relatively mild and has already appeared in Sweden along with more than 100 other countries.

Clade 1b, a mutant strain of clade 1, appeared in a small mining town in the DRC in September of last year and is said to be “the most dangerous yet”.

It is believed to have a higher mortality rate of somewhere between 5-10 per cent, compared to around 0.2 per cent of clade 2.