Berlin: The health authority at the Robert Koch Institute said today, Tuesday, that infection with the new strain of the Impox clade 1B virus has been discovered in Germany for the first time.
The institute said that the infection occurred abroad and was discovered last Friday, adding that it does not see an increasing risk to Germany but is “closely monitoring the situation.”
Smallpox, a viral disease related to smallpox that causes fever, body aches, swollen lymph nodes, and a blistered rash, has two main subtypes — branch 1 and branch 2.
As of May 2022, type 2 has spread worldwide, mostly affecting gay and bisexual men in Europe and the United States. In July 2022, the World Health Organization declared an international public health emergency, the highest alert level for the spread of the disease.
Vaccination and awareness campaigns in several countries helped stem the number of cases worldwide and the World Health Organization lifted the state of emergency in May 2023 after reporting 140 deaths out of about 87,400 cases.
But this year, a new epidemic broke out in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In addition to branch 1, which mainly affects children, a new strain has emerged in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, called branch 1b.
Category 1B cases have also been recorded in neighboring Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, none of which have previously detected smallpox. The World Health Organization declared another international emergency in August.