Mpox (formerly known as monkeypox) is a disease caused by the monkeypox virus (MPXV) from the Poxviridae family. It is a zoonotic disease that spreads from animals to humans. However, the current common mode of transmission is from human to human through close contact with an individual who shows symptoms and signs of mpox infection.
Mpox is endemic in Central and West Africa and has spread to 116 other countries. There are two known clades of the monkeypox virus (MPXV) that can cause mpox: clade I and clade II.
On August 14, 2024, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared mpox a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) for the second time, based on the advice of the IHR Emergency Committee. This decision emphasized the faster spread of a new strain of mpox, clade Ib, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and neighboring countries in the African region. Four East African countries reported mpox cases for the first time: Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda. Cases of clade Ib mpox have also been reported outside the African region, with one case in Sweden on August 16, 2024, and one in Thailand on August 21, 2024.
In Malaysia, nine cases of mpox were reported in 2023, all of which were clade II. To date, no clade I mpox cases have been detected in the country.
The number of mpox cases reported in each country can be checked on the website https://ourworldindata.org/mpox.
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