Severe mpox strain spreading in US: What is it and how to stay safe

Health officials in the United States are sounding alarms after detecting cases of a more severe mpox strain, called clade I, in California, with patients who had no history of recent travel abroad. This is the first time such a strain appears to be spreading domestically, raising concerns over whether we are seeing a worrying shift in how the virus moves. So far, three cases of clade I mpox have been confirmed in Southern California, including Los Angeles County and Long Beach – all of them required hospital care but are now recovering at home. This demands a significant amount of concern because earlier US instances of clade I mpox were in people who had traveled to central or eastern Africa. The fact that multiple people are now infected locally suggests community transmission – a