What you need to know about the new mpox variant

A new strain of mpox has been circulating in the Democratic Republic of Congo in Central Africa for months and slowly spreading throughout the rest of the continent — even reaching countries the virus had never previously been detected in.

Last week, a case of this new and deadlier variant was detected in Sweden, the first outside Africa.

While the virus has not yet reached the United States, concerns about the global threat of the virus abound, and many have questions about how to be prepared — both individually and societally — for the threat of mpox.

Dr. Raynard Washington, health director of Mecklenburg County in North Carolina and chair of the Big Cities Health Coalition, shares advice and assurance about the new variant.

Let's talk about the difference between this variant and the one that spread back in 2022. This one is more transmissible and deadly. Do we know why? 

“Yeah, as infections mutate, those variants tend to have somewhat different properties and, in this case specifically, it is believed that Clade-1b [the new variant] is more transmissible, potentially more infectious and as you also mentioned, more deadly, and also the severity of illness overall tends to be worse.”

Is there any population that's of greater risk of severe illness?

“Well at this point the current outbreak is really sort of centralized right now in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and so certainly it is impacting folks who are living in that region. So, it's spread to more than 15 countries in that region of Africa. As well, as you have heard now, there are some incidental importations of the infection to other countries like Sweden and the Philippines as well. So, at the moment, I think anyone traveling to those regions would be folks who we would be concerned of at greatest risk, in terms of infection.”

When that kind of thing happens and you start to see it spread, does that mean a greater chance of it coming to the U.S.? Do you expect that eventually to happen?

“I certainly think the risk is there. I think what the World Health Organization did last week is a first step in making sure that all systems are on high alert and are prepared for potential infections to be coming within their borders. So, I think the likelihood of transmission as we saw with the outbreak in 2022 is there. I think it's difficult to assess or quantify that risk level, but we – both locally across our state and across the country – have to be prepared.”

Do we know how effective the vaccine is against this variant?

“Yeah, the vaccinations that we have available here domestically, the JYNNEOS vaccine, is effective against both clades one and clades two of mpox, specifically for the reduction of severity of illness. So, if you were previously vaccinated in the first round, then we're not recommending additional vaccines now and we still have those vaccines available here in the country. We obviously encourage folks who have any travel related risk, if they're traveling to that region, if they're having close physical contact with people from that region or while they're in that region, then certainly we would advise those folks to be vaccinated.”

If you didn't get the vaccine before and if you're not going to be traveling, should you be getting the vaccine now or is it too early?

“It’s a bit premature. In general, we never got to a place where we recommended the vaccines for mpox globally. The 2022 outbreak disproportionately impacted certain communities here in our country, specifically those individuals who engage in high-risk sexual contact and the MSM (men who have sex with men) community. We are continuing to have some cases of the original version of mpox that was here, we continue to advise folks to get vaccinated who might be in those communities. In fact, we were doing vaccines over the weekend here in Charlotte at our pride event and so we would continue to encourage those folks to get vaccinated. Again, as I mentioned, if people are traveling to the DRC [Democratic Republic of Congo] or in that region, and particularly if they're having high risk, physically close contact with individuals, it might be important to consider vaccines in those cases as well.”

There's been criticism that we were all too slow to react to this new variant. It's centered, as you said, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The country has struggled to get any vaccine assistance there, and now it's spreading to other countries. Given what we learned about the importance of early intervention, what went wrong and what can wealthy nations like the U.S. do to prevent further outbreaks? 

“There’s a few things that are important when you're responding to this kind of global outbreak. First of all, surveillance is really, really critical. And so, ensuring that you have surveillance systems set up in, not just the countries that are most immediately impacted, but also other countries and also making sure that we have vaccines available. We have vaccines in our communities, but I think we also have to support those other countries, as well. And I think that the WHO's efforts this week were to really get that process started so that more resources can be sent to those places.”

Thomas Danielian produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Michael Scotto. Danielian also adapted it for the web.