Singapore increases controls for mpox after detection of new variant in Asia
ON AUGUST 14, THE WHO DECLARED A PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCY FOR THE VIRUS.
Singapore authorities on Friday increased controls at airports and borders against mpox (formerly known as monkeypox), a day after Thailand congrmed the Grst case of the new variant clade 1b in Asia.
The new measures in Singapore, announced the day before, come amid increased prevention controls in other countries in the region such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand since the World Health Organization (WHO) decreed a global emergency for this disease on August 14.
In a statement, the Singapore Ministry of Health indicated that the “precautionary measures” are aimed at increasing surveillance capacity at the borders, although it speciged that there are no direct ights to African countries where there are outbreaks of mpox.
Travelers arriving in Singapore should report symptoms similar to those caused by mpox and suspected cases of the disease will be isolated in a hospital.
This year the city has detected 13 cases of mpox, but all are of clade 2, which is less virulent than the clade 1b variant.
Asian countries, mainly in Southeast Asia, are closely following the situation in Thailand, which on Thursday congrmed the Grst case of clade 1b, a more virulent variant, in a person who arrived in the country on August 14 from Africa, after a stopover in the Middle East.
Laboratory results conGrmed that the 66-year-old patient, whose possible infection came to light on Wednesday, is infected with the new mpox variant, after testing negative for the less contagious clade 2 variant.
The congrmation of the case in Thailand is the Grst to be recorded in Asia following the global emergency decreed by the World Health Organization (WHO), after the results of other patients in Pakistan or the Philippines revealed other variants of the old monkeypox.
On August 14, WHO declared a public health emergency of international concern due to the increase in mpox infections (clade 1 and clade 1b) in Africa, where the virus is circulating intensively.
A dozen African countries have accumulated around 19,000 cases of mpox and more than 540 deaths so far this year, with the current focus in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the African public health agency reported this week.
Sweden congrmed the Grst case of clade 1b outside Africa on August 15.