THURSDAY, Aug. 8, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- U.S.
doctors should be on the lookout for a more severe strain of mpox that is spreading widely in parts of Africa, federal health officials warned Wednesday. The , issued by the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, came just hours after the World Health Organization's Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesu that he will be gathering a group of advisers to decide whether the mpox outbreak in Africa should be declared a public health emergency of international concern. Cases of what is known as the clade 1 strain of mpox haven't yet been reported outside of central and eastern Africa, the CDC noted in its alert.
But the likelihood of additional spread prompted the agency to recommend that doctors in this country consider this more dangerous strain of mpox in patients who have recently been in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) or any neighboring country (Angola, Burundi, Central Africa). Still, "due to the limited number of travelers and lack of direct commercial flights from DRC or its neighboring countries to the United States, the risk of to the United States is considered to be very low," the CDC added. The latest mpox strain is different from the one that spread globally in 2022, which mainly affected men who have sex with men.
Those cases have since decreased significantly in the United States, reported. Meanwhile, mpox cases have soared by 160% in Africa this year, as a lack of both vaccines and treatment.