China to screen arrivals showing mpox symptoms as cases spread outside Africa

Symptoms include “fever, headache, backache, myalgia, swollen lymph nodes, skin, and mucous membrane rashes”, the statement read.

The screening measures will last for six months and the list of affected countries will be updated according to World Health Organization information.

Global health officials confirmed an infection with a new strain of the mpox virus in Sweden on Thursday, linking it to a growing outbreak in Africa. The case in Sweden came one day after the WHO declared the disease a global public health emergency.

So far this year, 13 African countries have reported 17,541 mpox cases, with 517 deaths.

This is the fourth time that China’s customs authority has issued an mpox screening policy. The first declaration went into effect in 2022, while two further declarations were made last year.

The 2023 monitoring policy expired in February, making the latest declaration the first for 2024.

Mainland China reported its first imported case of mpox in September 2022 and the first domestic case in June last year.

According to China’s Centre for Disease Control and Prevention – which monitored mpox infections for four months last year, from August to November – there were 1,013 new cases recorded during the monitoring period, with no deaths.

Under China’s regulations for the prevention and control of infectious diseases, mpox is listed as a category B infectious disease, along with Covid-19 and Aids, as well as viral hepatitis. The only two category A infectious diseases are plague and cholera.

Beijing downgraded Covid-19 from category A to B in January 2023, after years of trying to contain the virus through a strict zero-Covid policy.

Besides mainland China, Hong Kong has reported a total of 67 mpox cases since 2022, while 395 cases have been recorded in Taiwan since 2023.

Mpox is a viral disease typically spread by contact with wild animals that occurs mostly in central and western Africa.

It was first identified in laboratory monkeys, but it typically circulates in small rodents. The ways it can be transmitted to humans include bushmeat, an animal bite or scratch, bodily fluids, contaminated objects or close contact with an infected person.