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 I,” 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 I 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 I,” 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.