LONDON: Britain’s health security agency (UKHSA) said on Friday another case of the mpox variant “clade lb” has been detected in England, the eighth case confirmed in the country since October last year.

The government agency said the risk to the population remained low. The clade lb variant is a new form of the virus that is linked to a global health emergency declared by the WHO in August.

The UKHSA said the new case — detected in London in a patient who had recently returned from Uganda which is seeing community transmission of the variant — had no links to the previous cases identified in England. “In the context of the outbreak in parts of Africa, we expect to see the occasional imported case of clade Ib mpox in the UK,” the UKHSA added.

The first case was detected in London in October, with the subsequent three cases affecting household contacts of the patient. Later, a fifth case was detected in Leeds in October, while the rem-aining cases were detected in January.

Published in Dawn, February 1st, 2025