Monkeypox cases confirmed in England ? latest updates

UKHSA has confirmed that an individual has been diagnosed with monkeypox linked to recent travel to West Africa.

Preliminary genomic sequencing conducted by UKHSA indicates that this case does not have the current outbreak strain circulating in the UK. The individual has been admitted to the High Consequence Infectious Disease (HCID) unit at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital in line with standing advice from the Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens (ACDP).

Contact tracing of close contacts of the individual is underway. So far, no further linked cases have been identified.

Dr Sophia Maki, Incident Director, UKHSA, said:

We are working to contact the individuals who have had close contact with the case prior to confirmation of their infection, to assess them as necessary and provide advice.

UKHSA and the NHS have well established and robust infection control procedures for dealing with cases of imported infectious disease and these will be strictly followed and the risk to the general public is very low.

We remind everyone who is planning to travel to West and Central Africa to be alert for the symptoms of monkeypox and to call 111 if you have symptoms on your return.

Cases of monkeypox infection were confirmed in England from 6 May 2022. The outbreak has mainly been in gay, bisexual, and men who have sex with men without documented history of travel to endemic countries. Further details on the epidemiology are available in the monkeypox technical briefing.