The last time I reported on monkeypox, news had just broken that Sweden announced that it had the first case of the more virulent strain of the virus that is responsible for the outbreak in Africa. The case was also the first one that had been detected outside of Africa.

As a reminder, this particular variety of monkeypox (which the press is desperately trying to rebrand as ‘mpox’ with little success outside of the “journalists”) is easier to catch via skin contact and causes more serious illness than the version of monkeypox that I reported on during 2022 global outbreak.

The strain of concern here is referred to as Clade 1b. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global health emergency in order to gather supplies to start a massive vaccination campaign targeting this pathogen.

Now another case of Clakde 1b outside of Africa is being reported. This one is not in Europe, but in Asia.

Thailand on Thursday confirmed an mpox case reported this week was the clade 1b strain of the virus, the second confirmed case of the variant outside of Africa.