MPOX awareness banner displayed at Chennai International Airport in India on August 21
R. Satish Babu/AFP via Getty Images
A new MPOX variant, called the Ib lineage, emerged in the Democratic Republic of Congo last year and is now spreading to neighbouring countries. Sweden and Thailand have also detected cases in people who had travelled from the region. So how serious a threat is this?
Mpox lineage Ib is clearly not as contagious as respiratory viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 and is therefore unlikely to cause a pandemic on the scale of covid-19. However, initially…
