The world already knows a lot about the mpoxso it cannot be considered “the new Covid,” said the director for Europe of the World Health Organization (OMS), Hans Kluge.
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“He mpox is not the new Covid. Whether it is mpox clade I, which caused the current epidemic in central and eastern Africa, or mpox clade II, which caused the 2022 epidemic” worldwide, Kluge said at a press conference of UN agencies.
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“We already know a lot about clade II. We still have a lot to learn about clade I,” he said, stressing that “we know how to fight mpox,” formerly known as “monkeypox“.
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Given the increase in cases of mpox in Democratic Republic of the Congodue to the clade Ib subtype, which also affects Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, the WHO decided to declare a international public health emergency On August 14th, the highest alert level.
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The WHO had already taken such a decision in 2022, when an mpox epidemic, then caused by clade IIB subtype, spread across the world. The alert was lifted in May 2023.
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Read also UK allocates over 3 million euros to combat MPOX outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo
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The virus was discovered in 1958 in Denmarkin monkeys bred for research. In 1970, it was first detected in a human in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire), with the spread of a clade I subtype, which was generally transmitted through contact with animals.
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According to Catherine Smallwood of the WHO’s European office, no animal-to-human transmission of clade Ib has been detected so far. “This appears to be a strain of the virus that circulates exclusively within the human population” and “is likely to be transmitted more efficiently between humans.”
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“We know that clade I is more dangerous than clade II,” added a WHO spokesman in Geneva, Tarik Jasarevic, but specialists are trying to find out if there is a real difference between clade Ia and clade Ib, in terms of severity.
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