Stockholm —
Health officials warned Friday that Europe should prepare for further cases of the deadly MPOX virus, which has killed hundreds in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has urged pharmaceutical companies to step up vaccine production, and China has announced it would test travellers after the first cases of the deadly virus outside Africa were reported in Sweden and Pakistan.
French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said the country was on “highest alert” and would implement “new recommendations” for travellers to risk areas.
Mpox is caused by a virus that is transmitted from animals to humans, but can also be transmitted from person to person through close physical contact.
It causes fever, muscle aches, and skin lesions that look like large boils.
The WHO on Wednesday declared the rapid spread of the new lineage 1b strain a global public health emergency, the agency's highest level of alert.
This comes after the more deadly MPOX virus spread from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to other African countries.
“We need manufacturers to scale up production so we can get more vaccines,” WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris told reporters.
The WHO is calling on countries with vaccine stockpiles to donate doses to countries where the infection is spreading.
Harris said MPOX is “particularly dangerous to people with weakened immune systems – people with HIV and those who are malnourished” and is also dangerous to young children.
The United States has announced it will donate 50,000 doses of the pox vaccine to the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Attal said France would also send vaccines to at-risk countries.
Danish pharmaceutical company Bayern Nordic said on Thursday it will be ready to manufacture up to 10 million doses of its MPOX vaccine by 2025, but needs a contract to start production.
The Stockholm-based European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said the risk across Europe was “low”, but warned that “effective surveillance, laboratory testing, epidemiological investigation and contact tracing capacities will be essential to detect cases”.
“Given the close connections between Europe and Africa, we need to be prepared for an increase in imported lineage I cases,” ECDC director Pamela Rendy-Wagner said in a statement.
Hundreds killed in Democratic Republic of Congo
The government said Thursday that the virus has spread across the Democratic Republic of Congo, killing 548 people so far this year.
Nigeria has reported 39 cases of MPOX this year but no deaths, according to health officials, and outbreaks have been reported in previously unaffected countries including Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Swedish Public Health Agency announced on Thursday that it had registered a case of lineage 1b.
Epidemiologist Magnus Ghislen said in a statement that the patient had become infected while visiting “a part of Africa where there is a large MPOX clade 1 outbreak.”
In a statement, Pakistan's Ministry of Health said the MPOX strain used in this case is currently unknown.
The patient is a 34-year-old man who reportedly “came from the Gulf countries.”
China has announced that it will begin MPOX testing of entering people and goods within the next six months.
Chinese customs officials said people arriving from outbreak countries who have had contact with MPOX patients or who have symptoms must “declare it to customs upon entry.”
The statement added that vehicles, containers and items coming from areas with MPOX cases must be disinfected.
Vaccination campaigns
There are two subtypes of Mpox: the more virulent and deadly lineage 1, which is prevalent in the Congo Basin in Central Africa, and lineage 2, which is prevalent in West Africa.
The global outbreak linked to the lineage 2b sublineage that began in 2022 has killed around 140 people out of around 90,000 infected, mostly affecting gay and bisexual men.
Between January 1 and June 30 of this year, 107 cases of the milder MPOX variant were reported in France.
The WHO's European regional office in Copenhagen said Sweden's case “clearly reflects the interconnectedness of our world”.
But he added that “travel restrictions and border closures are ineffective and should be avoided.”
