Mpox’s ‘big evolutionary jump’ hinders efforts to track its spread
- The new mutated strain appears to be spreading more quickly in children and adolescents, posing challenge to contain the outbreak of the disease
The surge of cases is centred in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country roughly the size of western Europe that’s been wracked by decades-long conflict, severe poverty and malnutrition as well as camps housing hundreds of thousands of displaced people. Now, just like the coronavirus, influenza and the many other pathogens that pose persistent risks, the virus that causes mpox is mutating, further complicating the effort to track its spread.
With this outbreak, mpox had “a big evolutionary jump,” said Tulio de Oliveira, director of Stellenbosch University’s Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation near Cape Town. “We have every reason to believe that there are many more cases that we have not detected.”
The last big surge of mpox in 2022 was also declared a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization in Geneva. That was caused by a milder strain of the virus known as clade IIb. The new mutated strain is related to a more virulent version called clade I that appears to be spreading more quickly in children and adolescents, as well as through sexual contact.