LONDON (Reuters) -Britain’s health security agency said on Monday another case of the mpox variant clade lb had been detected in England in a person who had no reported travel history or link with previously confirmed cases in the country.
The case was diagnosed in March and all contacts have been followed up and no further cases were identified, the agency said.
It said the risk to the population remained low and it is investigating how the individual, who is from northeast England, caught the infection.
Jonas Albarnaz of the Pirbright Institute described the case as “surprising” because prior infected individuals had recent travel history to an affected country or contact with someone who had.
Albarnaz added: “It’s likely that it was acquired from another infected person, via direct contact either with skin lesions or with contaminated surfaces or objects.”
The clade lb variant is a new form of the virus that is linked to a global health emergency declared by the World Health Organization in August.
In March, UKHSA said it no longer classified clade la and lb mpox as high consequence infection diseases.
(Reporting by Unnamalai L in Bangalore and Sam Tabahriti in London; editing by Mark Heinrich and Cynthia Osterman)
