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 preparing for "this new strain before it spreads to other places, before it is too late," John Claude Udahemuka, a researcher at the University of Rwanda studying the outbreak, told AFP. 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. While the global outbreak was largely sexually transmitted, people in Africa normally caught clade I from infected animals, such as when eating bushmeat.
But "it was obvious something was different" about an mpox outbreak detected in the remote mining Congolese town of Kamituga in September last year, Udahemuka told an online press conference. Testing revealed it was a mutated variant of the original strain called clade Ib. It is "undoubtedly the most dangerous strain so far," Udahemuka said.
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, h.
