New monkeypox strain discovered in UK, patient hospitalized

British health officials have confirmed that a new strain of monkeypox has been discovered in the UK.

The UK Health Security Agency said on Thursday that a person who had recently travelled to West Africa was diagnosed with a monkeypox strain that was different from the one currently circulating in the UK.

The person, who remains unnamed, is now at the High Consequence Infectious Disease unit at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital.

The British health agency said that no other cases had been identified as of Thursday, and that contact tracing is currently being carried out.

Sophia Maki, incident director of the UK Health Security Agency, said: “We are working to contact the individuals who had close contact with the case prior to confirmation of their infection, to assess them as necessary and provide advice.”

She added that the risk to the public was still “very low” due to infection control procedures.