This photo supplied by MSF (Doctors Without Borders) dated May 31, 2023, shows health workers educating children on the symptoms of the mpox disease in Goma, Congo. (Augustin Mudiayi/Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières via AP)
LONDON/PESHAWAR (AP) — Swedish health officials and Pakistan’s health ministry said they have identified their first cases of a new mpox variant that might be more easily transmitted, days after the World Health Organization declared the spread of mpox a global health emergency.
The Swedish public health agency said in a statement the patient recently sought health care in Stockholm.
"In this case a person has been infected during a stay in the part of Africa where there is a major outbreak of (the more infectious mpox)," the agency said.
Magnus Gisslen, a state epidemiologist with the Swedish health agency, said the person had been treated and given "rules of conduct."
"The fact that a patient with mpox is treated in the country does not affect the risk to the general population," Swedish officials said, adding that experts estimate that risk to be "very low." They said, however, that occasional imported cases may continue to occur.
The case in Pakistan, in a man who had recently returned from a Middle Eastern country, is only the second confirmed case of the new variant outside of Africa.
The ministry, in a statement, said the man who tested positive for mpox was from Mardan, a district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan.
It said the ministry has directed officials at border crossing points and airports to ensure strict surveillance and collect samples for medical tests if they see symptoms of the disease in any passenger returning from abroad.
It was unclear which Middle Eastern country the man had visited, and no cases of the new variant have yet been reported in that region. The United Arab Emirates, however, has had 16 confirmed cases of mpox since 2022, according to the WHO. The UAE is particularly affected by transnational outbreaks given its role as a hub connecting East and West with its long-haul carriers Emirates and Etihad.
The director of public health for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Dr. Irshad Roghani, said the person infected with mpox in Pakistan has mild symptoms. “Contact tracing of the affected person has been started and samples of more people are being obtained,” he told The Associated Press.
Roghani said that since 2022, 300 people have been tested in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, of whom two tested positive last year. This is the first case detected this year.
Earlier this year, scientists reported the emergence of a new form of the deadlier form of mpox, which can kill up to 10% of people, in a Congolese mining town that they feared might spread more easily. Mpox mostly spreads via close contact with infected people, including through sex.
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's figures.
So far, more than 96% of all cases and deaths are in a single country — Congo.
Given the resources in Sweden and other rich countries to stop mpox, scientists suspect that if new outbreaks linked to Congo are to be identified, transmission could be stopped relatively quickly.