India’s health ministry has reported a suspected case of mpox in a man who recently returned from a country experiencing an outbreak of the virus.
The young male patient has been isolated in a hospital and is in stable condition, according to a statement issued by the ministry on Sunday. The ministry emphasized that India has “robust measures” in place to manage such cases.
“The case is being managed in line with established protocols, and contact tracing is ongoing to identify potential sources and assess the impact within the country,” the ministry added.
While the exact strain of the mpox virus is yet to be confirmed, testing is underway. The clade 1b strain has raised global concern due to its tendency to spread more easily through routine close contact. A case of this variant was confirmed in Sweden last week and linked to a growing outbreak in Africa.
India has previously recorded 30 cases of the older clade 2 strain between 2022 and March 2024. Originally called monkeypox, the virus was first identified in monkeys in 1958 and in humans in 1970. It is transmitted through close physical contact with infected animals or humans and typically causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions on the body. Although generally mild, it can be fatal in rare cases.
Last year, the World Health Organization (WHO) renamed monkeypox to mpox, citing concerns that the original name was “racist.” The WHO recently declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern but stressed that mpox is not comparable to COVID-19.
Over 17,500 mpox cases and 629 deaths have been reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) this year. The DRC, which hosts both clade 1b and clade 1a strains, has received its first batch of mpox vaccines to help curb the outbreak, prompting a global health emergency declaration by the United Nations.
The virus has also been detected in Pakistan, the Philippines, and Thailand.
