Health Security Agency United Kingdom (UKHSA, the UK Health Security Agency) announced emergence of the first case of the latest variant of the mpox virusoriginally known as ‘monkey pox’, it caused a major epidemic in Africa.

““UKHSA has so far detected one confirmed human case of clade 1b mpox,” that’s what the new variant is called, wrote the British Health Security Agency in a statement this Wednesday, which mentioned this “The risk to the population is low.”

“This is the first detection of this type of mpox in the UK. “This differs from clade 2 mpox, which has been circulating in low numbers in the UK since 2022, mainly among homosexuals and bisexuals,” the UKHSA reported.

Related: They detected the first infection due to a new mpox variant in Germany: what is known

ANDThis case was detected in London and the person, who was hospitalized, “had recently traveled to African countries that have mpox clade 1b cases,” the agency added.

On October 22 it was detected in Germany cases of infection with this new variant, one after another also appeared in Sweden and several Asian countries.

“All contacts of this person will be offered testing and vaccination if necessary and will be informed about additional treatment that should be provided if they experience symptoms or if the test result is positive,” explained UKHSA.

The organization added that they were successful “working closely” with the UK Public Health Service (NHS) “to determine the characteristics of the pathogen and further evaluate its risk to human health.”

Mpox is a virus that is transmitted from animals to humans, but also between humans, and It causes fever, muscle pain and skin lesions.

For several months now, a new epidemic affecting Africa, with the highest number of infections in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Burundi and Nigeria.

In light of this new outbreak of viral disease, Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche is increasing its production capacity to produce mpox diagnostic tests, as reported by its general director during the publication of the group’s sales in the first nine months of the year.

Production capacity can be increased up to “10 times” if necessary, “depending on how the situation develops”Thomas Schineker told reporters.

Currently, there is two simultaneous epidemics: one caused by clade 1 in central Africa, which mainly affects children, and another caused by a new variant, clade 1b, which affects adults in other regions, east of Congo and in neighboring countries.

Total, Since January, 42,000 mpox cases have been recorded in Africa, and about 1,100 people have died from the disease, the African Union’s health agency reported last week.