Mpox cases ‘highly likely’ to rise in Europe, health chiefs warn

Health chiefs have told governments across Europe to expect further cases of a new and more dangerous form of mpox.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDPC) said it was “highly likely” that the Continent would see more patients carrying the clade 1b form of the virus, which appears to be more virulent than the clade 2 strain that caused outbreaks in the West, including in the UK, in 2022.
Pamela Rendi-Wagner, director of the European Union health body, said: “Due to the close links between Europe and Africa, we must be prepared for more imported clade I cases.”
The first European case of clade 1b was reported by Sweden on Thursday. That patient had visited a region of Africa in the grip of an epidemic that has infected thousands. The World Health Organisation has confirmed 537 deaths, a large majority of them in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The first Asian case was reported in Pakistan on Friday.
The ECDPC added that the likelihood of infection for people who travel to Africa and have close contact with affected communities is high. Mpox can be spread through sex and other physical contact, via coughs and sneezes, or through bedding or clothing used by an infected person.
However, it added that the “likelihood of sustained transmission in Europe is very low provided that imported cases are diagnosed quickly and control measures are implemented”.
Shares in the company that makes the vaccine used by the NHS to control mpox have soared, as the first case of the more dangerous variant was reported in Asia.
The stock market value of Bavarian Nordic, based in Denmark, has risen about 35 per cent this week. The company, worth about £2 billion, supplies the NHS with the Imvanex vaccine, which has been offered to gay men and others judged to be at high risk of mpox infection.
The drugmaker said on Friday that it was seeking approval from the EU regulator for the jab, which is licensed only for adults, to be permitted for children aged 12 to 17. It is also preparing a clinical trial to assess the safety and effectiveness in younger children, aged 2 to 12.
In the DRC, the centre of a growing mpox epidemic in Africa, about 40 per cent of cases are estimated to have been in children under five.
Meanwhile, Pakistan’s health ministry said it had identified the first case seen in Asia of the new clade 1b mpox variant. The case involved a man who had recently returned from the Middle East. He is from a district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, bordering Afghanistan. It was unclear which Middle Eastern country he had visited and no cases of the new variant have yet been reported in that region.
• What is mpox? Symptoms, vaccine and how the virus spreads
On Wednesday the World Health Organisation said there had been more than 14,000 cases and 524 reported mpox deaths in Africa this year. Experts believe the true figures are likely to be higher. More than 96 per cent of all cases and deaths have been in the DRC.
The director of public health for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Irshad Roghani, said the person infected with mpox in Pakistan had mild symptoms. “Contact tracing of the affected person has been started and samples of more people are being obtained,” he said.
The NHS has been offering the Imvanex vaccine to the people most likely to be exposed to mpox. Those thought to be most at risk of infection have included healthcare workers caring for mpox patients, gay and bisexual men and those who have multiple partners, participate in group sex or attend or work at “sex-on-premises” venues.
Meera Chand, deputy director at the UK Health Security Agency, said this week that the risk to the UK population from mpox was considered low and that no cases of the new strain had been identified in the country. However, she added that planning was under way to prepare for infections. The Department of Health and Social Care has said it has stockpiles of mpox vaccines and treatments in place.
The outbreak in Africa prompted the WHO to announce a public health emergency of international concern, a move designed to press countries to prepare for a broader epidemic. This category of alert has been used for ebola outbreaks, Covid-19 and a 2022 mpox surge in Europe.