MANILA, Philippines — The country’s first mpox (formerly monkeypox) patient this year has contracted the milder form of the virus, the Department of Health (DOH) said on Wednesday.
“The DOH Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) reported today to Health Secretary Teodoro J. Herbosa that sequencing of the Monkeypox virus (MPXV) deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) sample from the 10th mpox case of the Philippines showed it to be of MPXV Clade II,” the department said in a statement.
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The MPXV clade II has been observed mainly in West Africa, and it has a mortality rate of less than 1 percent to 4 percent, the DOH said.
“Recent cases of mpox detected in the Philippines thus far are by MPXV clade II, with zero deaths,” it added.
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MPXV clade I, on the other hand, has been described in the 1980s as having a mortality rate ranging from 1 percent to 10 percent.
The DOH said it has been observed mainly in the Congo basin (central Africa) and is “more likely to cause severe illness and death, especially in the immunocompromised.”
The first case of mpox for this year and the 10th for the country is a 33-year-old male from Metro Manila.
Nine mpox cases were reported by Philippine authorities in 2022 and 2023.