A second case of CLADO 1B of the MPOX, a time presented as the “smallpox of the monkey”, was recorded at the end of February in France, said Wednesday, March 5, Public Health France (SPF) in its last epidemiological bulletin dedicated to this transmitted disease.
This is a case “imported from an African country where the monkeypox virus of CLADO IB circulates,” says the health agency. In total, “23 MPOX cases declared” in 2025, according to the SPF evaluation.
In France, the first case of CLADO 1B was recorded in Brittany in early January. The infected patient, about thirty years old, had been in contact with two people who recently traveled in the Democratic Republic of Congo (RDC).
A high alert level
First identified in the RDC in 1970, the disease has long been limited to a dozen African countries. But in 2022, it began to expand in the rest of the world, especially in developed countries where the virus had never circulated.
Given this outbreak, the World Health Organization (WHO) had declared a “public health emergency of international scope.” Thanks to vaccination and awareness campaigns that helped stop the propagation, the alert rose in May 2023.
However, only one year later, a new epidemic exploded mainly in the RDC, with the original strain of clado 1 and the new clado, 1b. This led the WHO to launch the maximum alert again last August. On February 27, the organization decided to maintain the highest level of alert for the epidemic.
Source: BFM TV
