Thailand has confirmed Asia’s first case of the new deadlier strain on mpox, making it the second country outside of Africa, and the first in Asia, to be hit by the variant.
It joins Sweden, which reported its first case of clade 1b monkeypox last week, meaning the virus has now reached two other continents in addition to Africa.
Thailand’s patient landed in Bangkok on August 14 and was then sent to hospital with mpox systems.
The country’s Department of Disease Control said laboratory tests on the 66-year-old European then confirmed he was infected with the mpox strain causing global alarm.
‘Thailand’s Department of Disease Control wishes to confirm the lab test result which shows mpox Clade 1b in a European patient,’ the department said in a statement.
Thailand has confirmed Asia’s first case of the new deadlier strain on mpox, making it the second country outside of Africa,and the first in Asia, to be hit by the outbreak
It added: ‘We have monitored 43 people who have been in close contact with the patient and so far they have shown no symptoms, but we must continue monitoring for a total of 21 days.’
Current rules in Thailand state anyone travelling to the country from 42 mpox ‘risk countries’ must register and undergo testing on arrival.
It makes Thailand the second country outside of Africa to report a clade 1b mpox case.
Though Pakistan the Philippines had suspected cases last week analysis later revealed these were cases of the milder clade 2 strain which emerged in 2022.
Cases of the new mpox variant, which kills up to one in 10 people it infects, have swept through central Africa killing hundreds since the outbreak began.
While no cases have yet been confirmed in the UK experts suspect the new variant is already in Britain.
Infectious disease specialists told MailOnline that with it taking up to 17 days from infection for symptoms to start showing, there was a decent possibility Britain’s first case is only a few days or weeks from being confirmed.
This long incubation time also means such cases are unlikely to be spotted by border officials meaning airport screening is incredibly unlikely to be effective they added.
Adding further to the confusion is that another kind of mpox is enjoying a resurgence in the UK.
Latest official data shows there were double the number of the less deadly clade 2 mpox cases recorded in July this year compared to the month prior.
July’s total of over 40 cases is the highest number tallied in over a year.
And as this website’s maps shows, cases of the clade 2 variant which is much less fatal than the clade 1 of global concern, are also being recorded around the world.
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the ongoing mpox outbreak across several central African nations a ‘public health emergency of international concern’ earlier this month.
In the 2022 outbreak, thousands of cases were recorded in the UK, mostly in London
Mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, is a rare viral infection which people usually pick up in the tropical areas of west and central Africa. Pictured, a colorized transmission electron micrograph of monkeypox particles (green) found within an infected cell (pink and purple)
This is the same designation the WHO gave Covid in late January 2020, just a few weeks before the virus ripped across the world, and some scientists have compared the current outbreak to the ‘early days of HIV‘.
The UK Health Security Agency has said no cases have yet been detected in Britain and the risk to the population remains ‘low’.
But rapid testing is being made available and GPs and hospitals have been told to isolate those with potential symptoms.
The Government is said to have enough vaccines and treatments to deal with a potential outbreak.
Professor Paul Hunter, an expert in infectious diseases from the University of East Anglia, told MailOnline the new strain of mpox was likely already in the UK.
‘Given that it can take up to 17 days for symptoms to develop and then another week for the diagnosis to be confirmed, then it is certainly quite likely, though not certain, that we have this clade here already,’ he said.
He added that, similar to the clade 2 variant, sexual contact remained the primary way that the new strain was spreading and therefore groups like men who have sex with men would be at increased risk.
‘1b was first detected in sex workers and is mainly spreading through sexual contact,’ he said.
‘So I think it likely that this new clade will spread most effectively in the same population.’
An outbreak of mpox clade 2 which spread through Europe in 2022 mainly spread through sexual contact, particularly among gay and bisexual men.
This led to these groups being offered a mpox vaccine by the NHS, alongside other at-risk groups, such as those who work in sex-on-premises venues as well as NHS workers who might be treating potential patients.
Nearly 100,000 people were infected in 2022 during that global outbreak of the disease.
The United States reported as many as 32,063 cases, with 58 deaths during the period as cases were reported in significant numbers in North, Central and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australasia.
However, the outbreak only killed an estimated 183 people, with this strain only having an estimated fatality rate of y about one in every 500 people infected.
In comparison, the new 1b strain kills an estimated one in 20 adults and one in 10 children.
But experts have said these fatality rates, which are from central Africa, are unlikely to be replicated in developed nations due to better access to higher quality healthcare.
Cases of the 2022 mpox strain continue to circulate however, with over 5,000 cases recorded globally since the start of the year.
