Monkeypox - United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland - World Health Organization

On 13 May 2022, WHO was notified of two laboratory confirmed cases and one probable case of monkeypox, from the same household, in the United Kingdom.

In contrast to sporadic cases with travel links to endemic countries (see Disease outbreak news on Monkeypox in the United Kingdom published on 16 May 2022), no source of infection has been confirmed yet.

On 13 May 2022, the United Kingdom notified WHO of two laboratory confirmed cases and one probable case of monkeypox to WHO.

The West African clade of monkeypox was identified in the two confirmed cases using reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT PCR) on vesicle swabs on 12 May and 13 May. .

All four were confirmed to have the West African clade of the monkeypox virus.

There are two clades of monkeypox virus: the West African clade and Congo Basin (Central African) clade.

Although the West African clade of monkeypox virus infection sometimes leads to severe illness in some individuals, disease is usually self-limiting.

Health authorities in the United Kingdom have established an incident management team to coordinate the extensive contact tracing which is currently underway in health care settings and the community for those who have had contact with the confirmed cases.

However, once monkeypox was suspected, authorities in the United Kingdom promptly initiated appropriate public health measures, including isolation of the cases and extensive forward and backward contact tracing to enable source identification.

In the United Kingdom, there have been eight previous cases of monkeypox reported: all importations were related to a travel history to or from Nigeria.