{"id":43601,"date":"2024-08-15T23:34:12","date_gmt":"2024-08-15T23:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=43601"},"modified":"2024-08-15T23:34:14","modified_gmt":"2024-08-15T23:34:14","slug":"mpox-sweden-confirms-first-case-of-more-grave-variant-outside-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2024\/08\/15\/mpox-sweden-confirms-first-case-of-more-grave-variant-outside-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Mpox: Sweden confirms first case of \u2018more grave\u2019 variant outside Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sweden confirmed its first case of the more contagious variant of mpox, a viral infection that spreads through close contact, marking the first time it has been found outside&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/africa\">Africa<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The person was infected while in a part of Africa where there was a large outbreak of the disease, Olivia Wigzell, director-general at the Swedish public health agency, told a press conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Earlier on Thursday, the World Health Organization&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/article\/2024\/aug\/15\/uk-prepares-mpox-cases-global-emergency\">declared mpox a global public health emergency<\/a>&nbsp;for the second time in two years, after an outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo that has spread to other countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Wigzell said the person who had been infected had received care and instructions in line with the health agency\u2019s recommendations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Earlier this year,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/article\/2024\/jun\/26\/democratic-republic-congo-drc-virulent-strain-mpox-monkeypox-virus-killing-children-miscarriages\">scientists reported the emergence of a new form of the deadlier form of mpox<\/a>, which can kill up to 10% of those infected, in a Congolese mining town and warned that it might spread more easily. Mpox mostly spreads via close contact with infected people, including through sex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">WHO said there have been more than 14,000 cases and 524 deaths in more than a dozen countries across Africa this year, which already exceed last year\u2019s figures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So far, more than 96% of all cases and deaths are in a single country \u2013 Congo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe emergence of a case on the European continent could spur rapid international spread of mpox,\u201d said Lawrence Gostin, a public health expert and professor at Georgetown Law in Washington. \u201cA case in Sweden most likely means dozens of undetected cases in&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/europe-news\">Europe<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dr Brian Ferguson of the University of Cambridge said the case in a Swedish traveller was concerning but not surprising, given the severity and spread of the outbreak in Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThere will likely be more here and in other parts of the world as there are currently no mechanisms in place to stop imported cases of mpox happening,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sweden confirmed its first case of the more contagious variant of mpox, a viral infection that spreads through close contact, marking the first time it has been found outside&nbsp;Africa. The person was infected while in a part of Africa where there was a large outbreak of the disease, Olivia Wigzell, director-general at the Swedish public [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":43602,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[1648,850,7960,596,913,11403,10344,6621,9505,5009,12634,10954,10342,7795,11470,9595,9457,10313,2278,9162,7584,1378,9209,11978,214,2354,36,594],"class_list":["post-43601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-fitness","tag-africa","tag-cambridge","tag-case","tag-congo","tag-democratic","tag-disease","tag-emergence","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-ferguson","tag-health","tag-international","tag-law","tag-mining","tag-monkey-pox","tag-mpox","tag-outbreak","tag-professor","tag-public-health","tag-scientists","tag-sex","tag-sweden","tag-swedish","tag-traveller","tag-university","tag-washington","tag-world","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43601"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43603,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43601\/revisions\/43603"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}