Thailand Reports First Case of More Virulent Monkeypox Strain as Virus Spreads to Asia

Thailand Reports First Case of More Virulent Monkeypox Strain as Virus Spreads to Asia

The last time I reported on monkeypox, news had just broken that Sweden announced that it had the first case of the more virulent strain of the virus that is responsible for the outbreak in Africa. The case was also the first one that had been detected outside of Africa.

As a reminder, this particular variety of monkeypox (which the press is desperately trying to rebrand as ‘mpox’ with little success outside of the “journalists”) is easier to catch via skin contact and causes more serious illness than the version of monkeypox that I reported on during 2022 global outbreak.

The strain of concern here is referred to as Clade 1b. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global health emergency in order to gather supplies to start a massive vaccination campaign targeting this pathogen.

Now another case of Clakde 1b outside of Africa is being reported. This one is not in Europe, but in Asia.

Thailand on Thursday confirmed an mpox case reported this week was the clade 1b strain of the virus, the second confirmed case of the variant outside of Africa.

The case is a 66-year-old European man who had arrived in Thailand last week from an unspecified African country where the disease was spreading.

“The test results confirm that he is infected with the Clade 1b strain of monkeypox, which is the first case diagnosed in Thailand, but this man is likely infected from an endemic country,” Thongchai Keeratihattayakorn, director-general of the Department of Disease Control, told Reuters.

He said no other local infections had been detected through contact tracing.

Asian countries are ramping up pandemic protocols in the wake of this news.

… Indonesia is enforcing screening measures at the country’s entry points following the WHO’s announcement of an emergency. The ministry’s spokesperson, Siti Nadia Tarmizi, said overseas travelers are required to fill in a form describing their overall health condition and recent travel history. “We have coordinated with the immigration authority to authenticate the travel history of incoming travelers to Indonesia,” Tarmizi told Nikkei Asia.

The Malaysian Health Ministry announced on Sunday that it would initiate preventive measures, including enhanced surveillance at international entry points, where travelers from countries reporting mpox cases must monitor their health for 21 days.

Individuals with a history of high-risk activities and symptoms, such as rashes or blisters, are urged to seek an immediate medical examination and avoid contact to prevent the spread of the virus, and suspected and confirmed cases should be promptly reported to health offices. Strict hygiene protocols are imposed in premises that involve skin contact, such as spas and massage centers.

Singapore has assessed that the immediate risk of mpox to the city-state “is low for now,” Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said on his Facebook page this past week. “Our clinics and checkpoint authorities are looking out for patients and travelers with symptoms,” Ong added. “We will activate isolation and contact tracing measures whenever we detect a case.”

The Clade II version, which was the pathogen responsible for the 2022 outbreak is still present in the US. Experts assess that the risk of Clade 1b arriving here is low and based on how many Americans go to Central Africa.

Clade II mpox, which caused the 2022 epidemic, is still circulating in the U.S. at low levels, the experts note. “It’s down to single digits or maybe a dozen cases a month,” says Kuritzkes.

There are no known cases of mpox clade I or Ib in the U.S. at this time. “The risk to the general public in the United States from clade I mpox circulating in the DRC is very low,” the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said in a news release on Aug. 14.

Experts agree that the while it is possible for a person to become infected with clade I mpox in a country where it’s spreading and travel back to the U.S., the chances of this happening are slim.

In a health alert issued on Aug. 7, the CDC stated that the risk of clade I mpox importation into the U.S. was “very low” due to the limited number of travelers and lack of direct commercial flights from the DRC and its neighboring countries to the U.S.

The news of the Thai case is concerning chiefly because the virus is more easily spread through close physical contact with someone who is infectious, with contaminated materials, or through sexual activity.

And in Thailand, sex tourism is a thing.

Ronald Weitzer shows that although some of the central pillars of Thailand’s sex industry remain unaltered over the past four decades, in other respects there has been a profound transformation.

In the sector oriented toward foreign visitors, the number of sex businesses and independent operators has grown numerically and geographically; customers are increasingly diverse in race and nationality; paid sexual encounters are no longer confined to young Thai women and older white men; transgender women comprise a significant share of the workforce; and technological advances give participants more autonomy than ever before.

Hopefully, the vaccinations and awareness campaigns work. But at this point, given where the virus has already landed, I will be surprised if they do.

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