India has confirmed its first case of a rapidly spreading new strain of mpox that has triggered international alarm among health experts.
Health Ministry spokesperson Manisha Verma confirmed that a case of clade 1b mpox had been detected in the southern state of Kerala.
The patient is a 38-year-old man who had travelled from the United Arab Emirates and had been admitted to the government medical college hospital in the district, according to local authorities.
Around 30 friends and family members of the patient and 37 passengers on his flight are being monitored at home but none have shown mpox symptoms so far, health chiefs in the region said on Monday.
Experts have said the new strain is associated with a more severe disease and higher mortality rates than the one that caused the global mpox outbreak in 2022.
No cases of clade 1b mpox have been recorded in the UK, but infections have been confirmed in Sweden and Thailand.
Last month, the World Health Organisation declared that the outbreak of clade I mpox in central Africa was a global health emergency.
India had reported about 30 cases and one death from the older strain, known as clade 2, between 2022 and March this year, and one more clade 2 case earlier this month.
Mpox is a viral infection that causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions, and while usually mild, it can kill. It spreads through close contact, including sexual contact.
Last week the UK Government confirmed it had ordered more than 150,000 doses of mpox vaccine in preparation for the “likely” discovery of cases of the new infectious strain.
The offshoot of the mpox virus was first identified in the Democratic Republic of Congo but has since spread to other neighbouring countries.
In a technical briefing published by the UKHSA last week, the agency warned that it was “highly likely” that imported cases would occur in the UK but that they would be detected.
“The low transmissibility of the virus means that they can be controlled by isolation of cases, contact tracing, post-exposure vaccination and quarantine of contacts,” they added.
