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The United Kingdom Government has identified a new strain of monkeypox infection in an individual who recently travelled to West Africa.
The development was reported on the official website of the UK government. It, however, noted that the “preliminary genomic sequencing conducted by UKHSA indicates that this case does not have the current outbreak strain circulating in the UK.”
This is the second time the UK would be linking monkeypox infection to West Africa since the current outbreak started. The first was confirmed in an unidentified individual who travelled from Nigeria to England.
UK said that the unidentified individual with the new strain has been admitted to the High Consequence Infectious Disease (HCID) unit at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital “in line with standing advice from the Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens (ACDP).”
It explained that contact tracing of close contacts of the individual is underway but no further linked cases have been identified.
Speaking, the Incident Director of United Kingdom Health Security Agency (UKHSA), Sophia Maki, said: “UKHSA and the NHS have well-established and robust infection control procedures for dealing with cases of imported infectious disease and these will be strictly followed. The risk to the general public is very low.
“We remind everyone who is planning to travel to the West and Central Africa to be alert for the symptoms of monkeypox and to call 111 if you have symptoms on your return.”
The total number of confirmed cases of monkeypox in the UK now stands at 3,413 as of September 2, according to the latest data by the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).