Did Mpox Clade 1b hit Singapore with 9 or 10 cases so far?! Take a look at the viral claim, and find out what the facts really are!
Claim : Mpox Clade Ib hit Singapore with 9-10 cases so far!
People are sharing a photo of an mpox patient, claiming that Mpox Clade 1b has already hit Singapore with 9 cases so far.
Mpox has arrived in Singapore. 9 cases so far.
Mpox 已抵达新加坡。目前已有 9 例.
Fwd from SG friend.
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Mpox is now spreading in Singapore… with 10 cases reported so far. Time to SERIOUSLY resume your personal safety measures IMMEDIATELY.
Start wearing Masks, Wash your hands & stay away from crowds.
MOH warns that this is a HIGHLY CONTAGIOUS DISEASE.
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Stay safe, stay healthy
Mpox has arrived in Singapore. 10 cases so far.
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Truth : Mpox Clade 1b has not hit Singapore with 9-10 cases so far!
This is yet another example of fake news circulating on WhatsApp, and here are the reasons why…
Fact #1 : WHO only declared PHEIC over Mpox Clade Ib
Let me start by quickly pointing out that the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on 14 August 2024 for Mpox Clade 1b (Clade Ib).
Here is the relevant section of the WHO PHEIC declaration, with our emphasis in bold.
The emergence last year and rapid spread of a new virus strain in DRC, clade 1b, which appears to be spreading mainly through sexual networks, and its detection in countries neighbouring the DRC is especially concerning, and one of the main reasons for the declaration of the PHEIC.
In the past month, over 100 laboratory-confirmed cases of clade 1b have been reported in four countries neighbouring the DRC that have not reported mpox before: Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda. Experts believe the true number of cases to be higher as a large proportion of clinically compatible cases have not been tested.
Fact #2 : Singapore has no Mpox Clade 1b cases yet
With that 2024 WHO PHEIC in mind, Singapore has not recorded any cases of Mpox Clade 1b yet, as of Monday, 19 August 2024.
On Saturday, 17 August 2024, Singapore Health Minister Ong Ye Huang said that the current risk of an outbreak in Asia and Singapore is low as there are no direct flights to the affected areas in Africa.
He said that the virus is mostly a concern for African countries, although it is expected to spread to the Middle East and Europe, and cases there could eventually spread to Singapore.
I would say, in general, this is a very worrying situation, especially for the African continent.
But I think we should work on the basis that mpox will arrive in Asia. And probably, Singapore will be one of the first places to find cases because of our flight connections (with Middle East and Europe).
In other words, there has been NO RECORDED CASES of Mpox Clade 1b cases in Singapore yet. There could be some in the future, but none at this point in time, as per the Singapore Ministry of Health (archive).
To date, all mpox infections detected in Singapore have been the milder Clade II infections, mostly during the 2022-2023 global outbreak.
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Fact #3 : Singapore has had dozens of mpox cases
It appears that “rumours” that Singapore has 9 or 10 mpox recently is based on a misunderstanding of media reports like this:
Singapore has had 10 cases of mpox since January 2024, which the Ministry of Health (MOH) confirmed were from the clade II variant.
The problem is – people don’t understand that the current concern isn’t the Clade II strain that has been going around since the 2022 outbreaks.
In fact, Singapore reported 18 cases in 2022, and 32 cases in 2023, followed by 10 cases in 2024. So Singapore has had dozens – at least 60, of mpox Clade 2 cases since the 2022 outbreaks.
What Singapore has not encountered (yet) is the new mpox Clade 1b strain that is worrying health experts, and the reason why WHO issued its second mpox PHEIC in two years.
Fact #4 : Mpox photo was of immunocompromised patient from 2022
The viral photo of the patient with a large number of huge black scabs appears to have been misappropriated and wrongly (or falsely?) labelled by the Iran Human Rights Monitor, as a victim of buckshot fired by Iranian security forces (archive).
This photo appears to have been taken by Dr. Hiram Jerónimo, a Mexican infectious disease specialist, who posted it on 11 October 2022. He confirmed that it was an immunocompromised patient who suffered a severe case of monkeypox (Viruela símica) with more than 250 lesions.
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Fact #5 : Mpox Clade Ib is different from Clade 2b from 2022 outbreaks
Mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, isn’t a new disease. The Orthopoxvirus causing mpox was first detected in humans in 1970, and has caused outbreaks now and then. But mpox only came into prominence in July 2022, when a multi-country outbreak of mpox Clade 2 cause concern enough for the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a PHEIC.
However, the 2022 outbreaks were caused by the mpox Clade 2b (Clade IIb) virus, which is a different strain from the mpox Clade 1b (Ib) virus that is causing the current health emergency in 2024.
As the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) explains, mpox Clade 1 and Clade 2 are “genetically distinct”, with different characteristics (WHO):
- Mpox Clade 1 (also known as the Central African clade, or the Congo Basin clade) has a different genetic profile from Mpox Clade 2 (also known as the West African clade),
- Mpox Clade 1 has more severe clinical symptoms, with higher rates of complications and fatalities, than Mpox Clade 2
While both clades are primarily transmitted through contact with infected animals, human-to-human transmission has occurred with the newer Clade 1b and Clade 2b strains.
- Mpox Clade 2b outbreak of 2022-2023 primarily spreads through sexual contact.
- The newer mpox Clade 1b outbreak of 2024 primarily spreads through close contact.
To be clear – what is concerning WHO and health officials worldwide isn’t the milder mpox Clade 2 strain that has been going around globally since 2022, but the new, and more virulent mpox Clade 1b that has started to spread out of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
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