India reports first Mpox clade 1b case in Kerala: Sources

Malappuram (Kerala) [India], September 23 (ANI): India has reported the first case of Mpox clade 1b from Kerala’s Malappuram after a 38-year-old man who travelled from United Arab Emirates showed symptoms.

According to the official sources, this is the first Mpox clade 1b case.

“India reports first MPOX clade 1 case, which was reported from Kerala Malappuram last week. The patient is a 38-year-old man who travelled from the UAE; this is the strain after which WHO declared a public health emergency,” sources said.

“The man had a fever and rash similar to chickenpox on his body, after which doctor get suspicious and sent sample for testing,” they added.

However, this is the second case. Earlier, the first Mpox case was reported in Delhi but it was a clade 2 case.

Mpox clade 1b spreads rapidly. According to the World Health Organisation, this spreads “mainly through sexual networks and its detection in countries neighbouring the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is especially concerning of the public health emergency of international concern (PHIC).”

Mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, has been a public health issue in parts of Africa for many years but resurfaced as a global concern in 2022.

Since January 1, 2022, Mpox cases have been reported to the WHO from 121 member states across all six WHO regions. The WHO Mpox report dated September 3, 2024, provides global data up to July 31, 2024. A total of 102,997 laboratory-confirmed cases and 186 probable cases, including 223 deaths, have been reported to the WHO.

In July 2024, 1,425 cases and six deaths were reported globally. More than half of these cases were from the African region (55 per cent), followed by the American region (24 per cent), and the European region (11 per cent). The South-East Asia Region (SEAR) reported 1 per cent of the total cases.