The UK reports the first local infections of the new mpox variant outside Africa.

Two people became infected with the new variant of the MPox virus in the United Kingdom after coming into contact with another infected person who returned from Africa, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.

The WHO notes that these are two people who live “in the same household as a person who tested positive shortly after traveling to several African countries.” These are “the first cases of local transmission in Europe and even the first outside Africa” ​​since August 2024, when the organization declared a global emergency due to the new variant.

“The overall risk to the population of the United Kingdom and the region remains low,” WHO Europe Director-General Hans Kluge said in a statement. “However, local transmission of mpox clade 1b should prompt health authorities to strengthen surveillance measures and prepare for rapid contact tracing of suspected and confirmed cases,” he added.

Mpox, also known as hand pox, was first discovered in humans in 1970 in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Within months, a new epidemic swept across Africa, with the highest rates of infection observed in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Burundi and Nigeria.