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00:00After health officials confirmed a case of a new strain of mpox, known as clade 1b, in
00:05Sweden, the European Union Health Agency is calling on its member states to prepare for
00:10more to come.
00:11The ECDC said it recommends that public health authorities in the EU, EEA, maintain high
00:16levels of preparedness planning and awareness-raising activities to enable rapid detection and response.
00:23Clade 1b is a more contagious strain, and more dangerous than clade 2, that was responsible
00:28for a global outbreak in 2022, but was relatively mild.
00:32The virus causes fever and raised skin lesions.
00:35It's transmitted through close physical contact.
00:39Mpox has killed hundreds in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the new strain has
00:43spread rapidly, prompting the WHO to sound its highest level of alert.
00:48It's spreading much more rapidly than we had seen others spread, so that's one issue.
00:55It does have quite a high case fatality rate at the moment in the area that it's spreading
01:00very rapidly.
01:01Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, there are a lot of people who are displaced because
01:06of conflict and are under all kinds of stress.
01:09It's also dangerous for small children.
01:11The WHO says there have been more than 14,000 cases and more than 500 deaths in Africa due
01:17to the virus so far this year, which already exceeds figures for 2023.
01:22On Friday, Pakistan also announced at least one new case of Mpox.
01:26The director of public health of the province where the patient reportedly lives says measures
01:31to prevent more cases have been put in place.
01:34We are committed, we are in strong liaison with the border health services and all the
01:38people having symptoms will be screened there and then.
01:42If some suspected case is found, we will isolate him or her at Police Services Hospital Peshawar
01:50for further management as according to the protocol.
01:54Two years ago, a vaccine helped to stem the tide of a global outbreak.
01:59Danish drugmaker Bavarian Nordic says it's prepared to produce 10 million doses of its
02:03vaccine targeting the virus by 2025.