New, deadlier mpox strain sparks fears of spread beyond DR Congo

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.

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All countries should be preparing for “this new strain before it spreads to other places, before it is too late”, Mr 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, mostly affecting gay and bisexual men. 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 the Democratic Republic of the 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 bush meat.

But “it was obvious something was different” about an mpox outbreak detected among sex workers in the remote mining Congolese town of Kamituga in September 2023, Mr Udahemuka told an online press conference.

Unlike previous outbreaks in the central African country, the virus was being transmitted via sex between heterosexuals.

Testing revealed it was a mutated variant of the original strain called clade Ib.

It is “undoubtedly the most dangerous strain so far”, Mr Udahemuka said.