The Robert Koch Institute, a reference entity in the control of infectious diseases, confirmed this Tuesday the first case in Germany of the new clade 1b variant of the mpox disease, formerly known as monkeypox. The entity has reported that the individual was infected abroad, according to Europa Press.
This is the second case of the new 1b variant in Europe. The first was detected last August in Sweden in a person who had recently traveled to an African country where he contracted the disease. disease.
Unlike the strain that caused the 2022 alert, which is transmitted mainly through sexual contact, this new variant is spread through everyday contact, which explains why it is also affecting children in the African countries where the epidemic occurs.
At the beginning of last September, the director of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), Pamela Rendi-Wagner, stressed that the risk for the European population from mpox is “low”and asked to keep in mind that we are not facing “the new Covid.”
“The Institute does not currently assume an increased risk of clade I viruses in Germany, but is monitoring the situation very closely and adapting its recommendations if necessary,” the institute has indicated on its website.
In August, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a “public health emergency of international importance« due to the increasing spread of mpox in Africa.
The mpox virus is mainly transmitted during close skin-to-skin contact, for example during sexual intercourse or intimate hugs, massages and kisses.
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