admin Mpox has been declared a global public health emergency, and while immunologists caution that more research is necessary to fully understand its contagiousness, the virus is spreading across various communities, affecting both adults and children.
This particular strain, known as clade 1b mpox, has been circulating throughout much of Africa since it was first identified in the Kamituga region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Recently, a case was reported in Sweden in an individual who had travelled to an affected African country, marking the first diagnosis of this strain outside the continent.
David Kelvin, a professor in Dalhousie University’s department of microbiology and immunology, and one of the leading researchers studying the Kamituga mpox strain, expressed concern about the virus’s impact on different demographics compared to 2022.
“What’s concerning,” Kelvin said, “is that while clade 2b initially spread within a very defined social group, clade 1b is not limited to any single group—it’s spreading throughout the entire community.”
The clade 2b strain triggered a public health emergency in 2022, raising fears of stigma, particularly as it disproportionately affected gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM) aged 18 to 49.
Kelvin noted that the initial study of the current outbreak showed some of the first cases emerging from heterosexual contact. Since its discovery last year, cases have also been identified in children.
Dr. Don Vinh, an infectious diseases specialist at McGill University Health Centre, advised caution when categorising this latest form of mpox, noting that it is as misleading to label the 2022 outbreak as a “gay disease” as it would be to call the clade 1b outbreak a “straight disease.” Both assumptions are equally incorrect, he emphasised.
Magazine 
