Sweden has confirmed its first case of the highly contagious mpox variant, Clade I, outside of Africa.
The health and social affairs minister Jakob Forssmed confirmed in a news conference on Thursday.
The patient, who sought medical care in Stockholm, is believed to have contracted the virus during a visit to an affected region in Africa.
"The fact that a patient with mpox is treated in the country does not affect the risk to the general population, a risk that the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) currently considers very low," the state epidemiologist Magnus Gisslen said in the statement.
This development comes after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared mpox a global public health emergency for the second time in two years.
The first time was a significant outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo that has spread to other countries.
"The emergence of a new clade of mpox, its rapid spread in eastern DRC, and the reporting of cases in several neighbouring countries are very worrying,” the director general of WHO, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a news conference.
He further added, "On top of outbreaks of other mpox clades in DRC and other countries in Africa, it’s clear that a coordinated international response is needed to stop these outbreaks and save lives."
