Updated 17.31 | Published 17.08
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full screen State epidemiologist Magnus Gisslén, Olivia Wigzell, acting director general of the Public Health Agency and social minister Jakob Forssmed (KD). Photo: Fredrik Sandberg/TT
The first case of the mpox disease of the more serious variant has been confirmed in Sweden, announced Social Affairs Minister Jakob Forssmed (KD) at a press conference on Thursday.
– It is of course something we take seriously, says Forssmed.
The first case has been confirmed in Region Stockholm, according to the Public Health Agency. It is also the first to be diagnosed outside the African continent.
The affected person has been in an area in Africa where there is a large outbreak of the clade 1 variant.
– The person has received both care and rules of conduct according to current recommendations, says Olivia Wigzell, Acting Director General at the Public Health Agency.
No additional infection control measures
The case does not risk affecting the population at large, according to Wigzell.
– The case itself causes, we have assessed, no further infection control measures at the moment, but we are of course following the development closely, she says.
On Wednesday, the World Health Organization WHO classified the outbreak of mpox in Africa as an international health emergency, which means that WHO can introduce emergency measures.
The variant of mpox that is now spreading in Africa, called clade 1, is believed to be both more contagious and more deadly than the variant clade 2, whose spread took off in 2022 and which is also found in Sweden.
Worrying factor
A worrying factor is that clade 1 can be spread more easily by close contact, and not, like the previous variant, primarily by sexual contact. The virus can be transmitted from mother to child and is suspected to have caused a large number of miscarriages and stillbirths.
Even before the summer, the government tasked the Public Health Agency with securing access to vaccines and medicines against mpox, to protect the groups that are at particular risk of infection and to be well prepared if the spread of infection in society increases, according to the Minister of Social Affairs.
State epidemiologist Magnus Gisslén says that the virus outbreak and the case in Sweden are taken very seriously.
– The important thing about a case that comes to Sweden is to prevent it from spreading here, he says and continues:
– Isolation with contact tracing and other measures. And this case has also received that.