Mpox: Thailand reports first case of ‘more dangerous' strain in a tourist

Thailand has detected the fresh Mpox case in a European man who arrived from Africa last week and is awaiting test results to determine the strain, a disease control official said on Wednesday.

News agency AFP reported Thailand reported the suspected first case of the new more dangerous strain of Mpox.

Thailand authorities were treating the case as if it were the Clade 1 form of Mpox, as the person had arrived on Augusts 14 from an African country where it was spreading, Thongchai Keeratihattayakorn, director-general of the department of disease control, told news agency Reuters.

The director-general did not name the African country.

Public health officials fighting a lethal outbreak of Mpox in Africa are struggling to avoid mistakes that cost lives during the Covid-19 pandemic, starting with the slow acquisition of vaccines, Bloomberg reported.

In the week since the World Health Organization or WHO called the spread of the potentially deadly disease a public-health emergency of international concern, there has been constant talk around getting the inoculations onto African soil. These are now expected to arrive next week.

Crucially, plans to ensure shots get into arms are also underway.

“It’s about putting in place strong supply chain management that can accommodate the vaccine that we are bringing in the next few days,” Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention director general Jean Kaseya said on Tuesday.

Mpox has been present on the continent since the 1970s, with little international attention. But even though it is the only region where the disease is endemic, it didn’t receive vaccines for the virus in 2022 as the infectious illness spread around the world.

It was a similar story during the Covid-19 pandemic. When those shots first became available, Africa found itself at the back of the queue.

Still, African nations failed to build up stockpiles of shots even after they agreed to a plan to improve the continent’s emergency response capabilities.

Part of that failure is linked to a lack of local vaccine production. The region imports almost all of its shots and a drive to set up a vaccine industry has stumbled. Kaseya is adamant this time will be different.

“Without local manufacturing in Africa, we are exposed,” he said.

The Biovac Institute, a South African vaccine maker, will discuss with the Africa CDC how to transfer technology so that the company can make mpox vaccines, said Chief Executive Officer Morena Makhoana.

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