On August 14, 2024, the World Health Organization declared Mpox, previously known as Monkeypox, a global health emergency due to a surge in cases across Africa. The announcement came after a meeting of the UN health agency's emergency committee.  Originally identified over 50 years ago in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mpox virus has been endemic in the region for decades. Recently, a new variant of the clade 1 strain, known as clade 1b, has emerged and is spreading in eastern Congo and neighboring countries that previously had no cases. Swedish authorities reported a case of the clade 1 variant on Thursday, 15th August, marking the first detection of this strain outside Africa. Despite this, they have assessed the public risk as low. Now let us understand what Mpox virus is, the symptoms and how they spread. Watch video

Former Chief Scientist at the World Health Organization, Dr Soumya Swaminathan, to the relief of many, informed that people need not panic about the new variant of COVID, JN.1. “We need to be cautious, but we don't need to worry because we don't have any data to suggest that this variant JN.1 is more severe or it's going to cause more pneumonia, more death, so I think what we need to do is try to take the normal preventive measures that we are all now familiar with. We're all now very familiar with Omicron. So it's the same family. So not much has changed, but 1 or 2 new mutations have come up. And that's why I think WHO has said let's keep a watch on it. It's a variant of interest. It's not a variant of concern," said Dr Soumya Swaminathan while speaking to ANI on December 21.