A 38-year-old man who recently flew in from Dubai is being treated in a hospital in Kerala’s Malappuram district, and India has its first case of the clade 1 mpox strain.
Health Ministry spokesperson Manisha Verma confirmed the clade to Reuters on Tuesday. It is the more dangerous variant behind the emergency alert from the World Health Organization, which had declared mpox a public health emergency in Africa in August. The Economic Times, citing reports, described the patient as stable and said he had traveled from the United Arab Emirates.
Contact tracing began at once. The district health officer said about 29 friends and family members, plus 37 passengers who shared his flight, were under monitoring. None had shown symptoms so far.
Not the first mpox case in India
Earlier in the month, a man from northern Haryana state tested positive and spent a few days in hospital. The Economic Times identified him as a 26-year-old resident of Hisar who carried the West African clade 2 strain. India has recorded more than 30 mpox cases over the past two years, all from clade 2, which is thought to be less infectious.
Since the WHO’s emergency alert, the more dangerous variant has reached countries outside Africa, among them Sweden, Thailand and Pakistan.
The official response
The federal government sent every state an advisory to watch for possible mpox cases. About 35 laboratories nationwide have been designated to test suspected infections.
The All India Institute of Medical Sciences, AIIMS, had its own protocol order on the disease. It called mpox “a virtual zoonosis with symptoms similar to those seen in the past in smallpox patients, although clinically less severe”, and said the WHO emergency declaration required “heightened awareness, rapid identification, and stringent infection control measures”.
The WHO’s declaration followed a meeting of its emergency committee, a day after the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made a similar declaration for the continent. The WHO has reported more than 14,000 cases and 524 deaths in Africa this year, more than last year’s totals. Over 96% of those cases are in Congo, where a new and possibly more transmissible form of the virus is causing concern.
How mpox spreads
Mpox passes from animals to humans, and between people through close contact with someone infected. That includes sex, skin-to-skin contact, and talking or breathing near another person. Symptoms include fever, muscle aches, swollen lymph nodes and lesions across the body. Left untreated, the disease can be deadly.
Sources
- Kerala: India reports first mpox case in current outbreak
- India reports first MPOX Clade 1 case in Kerala
