[Source: BBC News]

Thailand has announced its first confirmed case of a new, potentially deadlier strain of Mpox – the first in Asia, and second outside of Africa.

According to Thailand’s Department of Disease Control, the infected 66-year-old European man arrived in Bangkok from an unnamed African country on 14 August.

He began displaying symptoms the next day, and immediately went to hospital. It has since been confirmed he had contracted Mpox, and in particular the strain known as Clade 1b.

At least 450 people have died from Mpox in an outbreak centred in the Democratic Repulic of Congo which started last year.