India reports first Mpox Clade 1 case; strain declared public emergency by WHO: Report

India on Monday has reported the first case of the Mpox clade 1 strain, official sources told PTI. This is the same strain which led to the World Health Organisation (WHO) declaring Mpox a public health emergency last month. The Mpox clade 1 strain has been detected in an individual from Kerala, reported PTI.

Sources said Clade 1b strain has been detected in the 38-year-old man from Malappuram district who had recently returned from the United Arab Emirates. The patient is currently stable and under observation.

“This was the first case of the current strain that led to the World Health Organization declaring Mpox a public health emergency last month for a second time,” the official sources said.

Manisha Verma, a spokesperson for the health ministry, confirmed the strain after news agency ANI cited official sources as saying that the mpox case reported in Kerala’s Malappuram district last week belonged to clade 1.

The earlier case of Mpox that emerged in the national capital was a 26-year-old resident of Haryana’s Hisar who has tested positive for the previous West African Clade 2 strain earlier this month. Since the 2022 declaration of Mpox as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by the WHO, 30 cases were reported in India.

Mpox clade 1b is a type of monkeypox which is currently endemic in Central Africa and can cause severe illness. The strain is fast-spreading, which is why WHO sounded a public health emergency after hundreds of infections across African countries.

Earlier in the day, WHO said that over 30,000 suspected cases of mpox were reported from Africa this year so far, with most of them in Democratic Republic of Congo where tests have run out.

More than 800 people died of suspected mpox across the continent in that time, the U.N. health body said in its report. Congo’s central African neighbour Burundi has also been hit by a growing outbreak, the organisation said.