Three more mpox cases detected in Philippines

The Philippines has reported three new mpox cases, bringing the total number of active cases in the country to eight this year, the Health Ministry announced on Sunday.

According to a report from the Manila Times, mpox surveillance systems identified two cases in Metro Manila and one in the Calabarzon region. All three cases involve the milder MPXV clade II variant.

Since July 2022, the Philippines has recorded a total of 17 mpox cases.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has classified the global mpox situation as a "public health emergency of international concern."

In 2024, more than a dozen African countries have reported mpox outbreaks, with the Democratic Republic of Congo accounting for over 90% of the reported cases.

The variant circulating in Africa is believed to be both more contagious and more deadly than the "clade II" variant, which was responsible for the global outbreak that began in 2022.

Mpox is a viral disease that spreads through close contact and contaminated materials such as sheets, clothing, and needles, according to the WHO.

Mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, has been a public health problem in parts of Africa since 1970, but received little global attention until it surged internationally in 2022, prompting the World Health Organization to declare a global health emergency. That declaration ended 10 months later.

A new strain of the virus, known as clade Ib, has the world's attention again after the WHO declared a new health emergency.

The strain is a mutated version of clade I, a form of mpox spread by contact with infected animals that has been endemic in Congo for decades. Mpox typically causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions and can kill.

Congo has had more than 18,000 suspected clade I and clade Ib mpox cases and 615 deaths this year, according to the WHO.

There have also been 222 confirmed clade Ib cases in four African countries in the last month, plus a case each in Sweden and Thailand in people with a travel history in Africa.