Topline
Sweden confirmed it had its first case of mpox, a disease formerly known as monkeypox, shortly after the World Health Organization declared an international health emergency over Africa’s escalating mpox outbreak.
Key Facts
The Public Health Agency of Sweden said in a press release Thursday a person who “sought care at Region Stockholm has been diagnosed with mpox caused by the clade I variant.”
The person had been infected during a stay in Africa, the agency said, adding the diagnosis “does not affect the risk to the general population,” which is currently “very low.”
The case makes Sweden the first country outside of Africa to report a case of the new mpox variant.
The clade I variant is an offshoot of the mpox virus that is “likely to be associated with a higher risk of a more severe course of disease and higher mortality” and seems to spread more easily between people, especially children, through regular close contact within households.
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WHO said Wednesday the upsurge of mpox in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and an increasing number of countries in Africa constitutes a public health emergency of international concern, which is “the highest level of alarm under international health law,” WHO’s director general Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
Key Background
This is the second public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) caused by mpox in as many years. In July 2022 a multi-country outbreak of mpox was declared as a PHEIC as cases “spread rapidly via sexual contact across a range of countries where the virus had not been seen before,” WHO said. That emergency ended less than a year later, in May 2023, after there had been a sustained decline in cases globally. As of Monday, at least 12 countries had reported Clade I mpox infections this year, with 2,863 cases and 517 deaths, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, and suspected cases across the continent had surpassed 17,000. The virus itself is a close relative of smallpox, one of the deadliest human pathogens and the only infectious human disease to have been eradicated, though it is less severe.
Is There An Mpox Vaccine?
There is a modern vaccine produced by Bavarian Nordic that was rolled out during the 2022 global outbreak, but supplies are limited and many of the countries with the largest outbreaks are also not equipped with the basic health infrastructure to deliver the shots effectively. But, Africa CDC did sign an agreement with the European Commission’s Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority and Bavarian Nordic to provide more than 215,000 doses of their vaccine, and the Africa CDC said it would oversee vaccine distribution and prioritize local needs.
Tangent
The declaration of the international emergency led to Bavarian Nordic’s shares jumping as much as 17% in early trading Thursday in Copenhagen, though gains fell throughout the day. On Wednesday, the company’s stock climbed about 12% following WHO’s declaration of the emergency.
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