UK hospital urgently tracing anyone in contact with A&E patient with rare virus

A hospital is desperately trying to trace patients and staff who came into contact with a person infected with mpox after they showed up in A&E. Health chiefs at Addenrbooke's Hospital in Cambridge contacted around 30 patients and 20 members of staff whose contact with the infected individual put them at risk of infection. The UK Health Security Agency has been informed of the case.

A spokesperson for Cambridge University Foundation Trust, which runs Addenbrooke's, said: "We are in contact with around 30 patients and 20 staff as a precautionary measure after a patient with Mpox visited our emergency department on Saturday evening (12 April).

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"The aim is to establish factors such as their proximity to the patient which, coupled with known factors like their age and vulnerability, helps determine whether they are offered a vaccine, or given advice around symptoms to look for and what to do. The UK Health Security Agency has been informed and the patient is now isolating at home and under the care of their GP.

"We would reassure patients who visited A&E on Saturday there is no need to contact us – we will contact them if we think there was any possibility of exposure."

Mpox is an infection most commonly found in parts of central and east Africa. The risk of catching it is low for most people in the UK.

The early symptoms of Mpox include shivering, exhaustion, joint pain, aches and a high fever. A rash typically appears between one and five days after the first symptoms.

It comes just weeks after a new case of the latest Mpox strain was detected in England in an individual with no travel history or links to any of the other cases. At the time it raised fears the virus could be sweeping silently through the UK.

The Clade 1b strain of Mpox, known to be more dangerous and transmissible than its predecessors, has now been detected in an unnamed individual from the , bringing the total number of cases in the UK up to 12.

But while all 11 previous cases were linked to those who had either recently travelled from or been in close contact with someone who had Mpox, the latest patient falls into neither of these categories.

The news has sparked fears the new strain could be silently sweeping across the UK, with experts also calling the news "concerning". Dr Krutika Kuppalli, associate professor in the division of infectious diseases at the University of Texas Southwestern, told The Telegraph: "The detection of clade 1b mpox in the UK without any known travel history or reported links to prior confirmed cases is concerning because it suggests possible undetected community transmission. This means the virus may already be circulating locally, beyond the scope of current surveillance efforts.