{"id":11500,"date":"2026-02-18T19:15:34","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T01:15:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=11500"},"modified":"2026-02-18T19:53:44","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T01:53:44","slug":"new-recombinant-mpox-strain-detected-in-uk-and-india-who-urges-continued-monitoring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2026\/02\/18\/new-recombinant-mpox-strain-detected-in-uk-and-india-who-urges-continued-monitoring\/","title":{"rendered":"New recombinant mpox strain detected in UK and India, WHO urges continued monitoring"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.un.org\/en\/story\/2026\/02\/1166966\">UN<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.who.int\/en\/\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"WHO, opens in a new window\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">WHO<\/a>&nbsp;confirmed that two cases of the recombinant strain \u2013 combining genomic elements of clades Ib and IIb of the monkeypox virus (MPXV) \u2013 have been identified to date: one in the United Kingdom and one in India. Both patients had recent travel histories, and neither experienced severe illness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>No secondary cases were detected following contact tracing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>WHO has published a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/emergencies\/disease-outbreak-news\/item\/2026-DON595\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"detailed update, opens in a new window\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">detailed update<\/a>&nbsp;on the two cases and the national responses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Recombination is a natural process<\/strong>&nbsp;that can occur when two related viruses infect the same person and exchange genetic material, producing a new variant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to WHO, detailed genomic analysis shows the two individuals \u201cfell ill several weeks apart with the same recombinant strain,\u201d suggesting that additional undetected cases may exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.un.org\/en\/story\/2026\/02\/1166966\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>UN WHO&nbsp;confirmed that two cases of the recombinant strain \u2013 combining genomic elements of clades Ib and IIb of the monkeypox virus (MPXV) \u2013 have been identified to date: one in the United Kingdom and one in India. Both patients had recent travel histories, and neither experienced severe illness. No secondary cases were detected following [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monkeypox"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11500"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11501,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11500\/revisions\/11501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}