Fifth person confirmed to be suffering from mpox in England
getty imagesA new case of mpox, which is spreading in parts of central and eastern Africa, has been confirmed in Leeds.
The infected person had recently returned from Uganda where clade 1b MPox, known as monkeypox, has been found.
He is the fifth person to be confirmed with the disease in England in recent weeks – the other four lived in the same household in London and have all recovered.
Health officials say close contacts of the Leeds case are being traced but the risk to the UK population remains low.
What is mpox and how is it spread?
Two new cases of highly contagious mpox found in Britain
The infected person is being treated at a hospital in Sheffield.
Symptoms of mumps often include a painful rash and sores on the body, followed by fever, headache, and exhaustion. Most people recover but for some it can become serious.
It is spread through close contact such as sex, skin-to-skin contact and talking or breathing very close to another person.
Professor Susan Hopkins, chief medical adviser at the UK Health Protection Agency, said: “It is thanks to doctors rapidly recognizing symptoms and our diagnostic tests that we have been able to detect this new case.”
“Following this fifth case, the risk to the UK population remains low and we are working quickly to trace close contacts and reduce the risk of any potential spread,” he said.
Professor Hopkins said they would be offered testing and vaccination.
Cases of a mild form of mpox, called clade 2, have been reported in the UK for several years.
More severe clade 1 cases are rare in Britain.
But UK health officials had expected a smaller number to be detected after a new variant of the virus spread in the Democratic Republic of Congo last year.
Clade 1b MPOX has spread from DR Congo to Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya in recent months.
This indicated World Health Organization to declare international public health emergency in AugustAbout which he said last week that it is continuing.
However, there are some hints The increase in MPOX infections is slowing, according to physicians working at a clinic in eastern DR Congo.
Millions of vaccines are being shipped to the hardest-hit areas of East and Central Africa to help control the outbreak.
Sweden, Germany, India, Thailand, Canada, and the United States have all seen imported cases of clade 1b but transmission has been very low to date.
