Thailand has confirmed an mpox case reported this week is the clade 1b strain of the virus, the second confirmed case of the variant outside of Africa.
The case is a 66-year-old man from a European country who had arrived in Thailand last week from an unspecified African country where the disease was spreading.
“The test results confirm that he is infected with the clade 1b strain of monkeypox, which is the first case diagnosed in Thailand, but this man is likely infected from an endemic country,” Thongchai Keeratihattayakorn, director-general of Thailand’s Department of Disease Control, told Reuters.
He said no other local infections had been detected through contact tracing.
Clade 1b has triggered global concern due to the ease with which it spreads through routine close contact.
