India must focus on genomic surveillance to understand the Mpox virus, and develop ways to curb its spread, said experts on Monday. The deadly Mpox virus is seeing another outbreak, especially in Africa, where so far about 14 countries have been, with 4 nations reporting the infection for the first time. The number of cases reported so far this year has exceeded last year’s total, with more than 15,600 cases and 537 deaths.
This prompted the Africa CDC and the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare the disease as a global health emergency. In 2022 Mpox had a global outbreak with many countries, including India, being affected. Since then, the WHO has reported 99,176 cases and 208 deaths due to Mpox from 116 countries.
India detected a total of 30 cases, with the last case in March 2024. “We need to focus on genomic surveillance of the virus to understand the genetic epidemiology, the spread, and the evolution of the virus,” noted biologist Vinod Scaria told IANS. He also called for developing “good diagnostics for faster diagnosis and better care of affected individuals”.
Mpox was first identified in monkeys in research laboratories in the 1950s, and it was not until 1970 that the first human case was discovered. It has been mostly localised and endemic in the Congo Basin, as well as in West Africa. There have been two types, clade one, which is mostly in the Congo region, and clade two, which is seen primarily in West Africa.
Dr Anurag Agarwal, Dean, BioScience.