New Delhi: Paris: A new deadlier strain of mpox that transmits more easily between people is killing children and causing miscarriages in the Democratic Republic of Congo and may have already spread to neighbouring countries, researchers have warned.
All countries should be prepared for “this new strain before it spreads to other places before it is too late,” Jean Claude Udahemuka, a researcher at the University of Rwanda studying the outbreak.
A global outbreak of a new strain of Mpox, previously known as monkeypox, in 2022 spread to more than 110 countries. That was the clade II strain.
But there have been regular outbreaks of the clade I strain — which is 10 times deadlier — in Africa since it was first detected in DR Congo in 1970.
More than 1,000 cases of clade Ib have been reported in South Kivu province since, said Leandre Murhula Masirika, who has led local research into the outbreak.
There are more than 20 new cases every week in Kamituga alone — and the number is rising, he warned.
Five per cent of adults and 10 per cent of children who get the strain die, researchers said.
It gives sufferers “horrendous whole body rashes,” unlike clade II, which caused lesions normally more limited to the genital area, said Trudie Lang, a global health researcher at Oxford University.
There has been a “high amount” of transmission between mothers or carers and children. The strain has also caused numerous miscarriages, and researchers are studying its long-term effect on fertility.
Out of 384 people who died from all mpox strains in DR Congo this year, more than 60 per cent were children, according to the World Health Organization.