A person in Thailand has been diagnosed with a deadlier new mpox variant – just the second confirmed case of the strain outside Africa.

The man is a 66-year-old European who arrived in Thailand from an unspecified African country last week.

The country’s director-general of the Department of Disease Control said tests on the man confirmed he is “infected with the Clade 1b strain of monkeypox”.

Thongchai Keeratihattayakorn added the man is “likely infected from an endemic country” and no other local infections have been found through contact tracing.

The man arrived in Thailand via a Middle Eastern country, which has not been named.

The Clade 1b mpox variant has triggered global concern due to how easily it spreads through close contact, particularly among children.

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The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared the recent mpox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.

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The strain emerged in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but cases were soon confirmed in neighbouring countries which had not reported mpox before: Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda.

Experts believe the real number of cases is “higher as a large proportion of clinically compatible cases have not been tested”.

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There has been just one other confirmed case of the Clade 1b variant outside Africa as Sweden confirmed a person there had been diagnosed with the strain last week.

They were also infected while in Africa.

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Mpox belongs to the same family of viruses as smallpox and symptoms include a fever, chills, body aches and a skin rash or pus-filled lesions which can last up to four weeks.

Newborn babies, children, people who are pregnant and those with underlying immune deficiencies may be at higher risk of more serious mpox and death, the WHO previously said.

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