How Britain is preparing for mpox as an expert warns deadly variant of disease has 'very likely' already arrived in UK

A health expert has warned that someone with the more deadly mpox variant is likely already in the UK.

There is a Clade 1b strain of mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, which appears to be more deadly than previous versions of the disease.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) declared a global emergency over the outbreak of this virus, with thousands of confirmed cases and hundreds of deaths.

While it is largely a number of African countries that are suffering from mpox, health ministries in Pakistan and Sweden have confirmed cases of the new strain in their counties.

In the UK health officials have said that there are currently no confirmed cases of the mpox variant and that the risk to the public is low.

We have vaccines and ways to treat mpox, and thus can be ready for it if cases are confirmed in the UK. (Getty Stock Photo)

This tallies with what health experts have been saying, as they've stressed that even if they think someone with the variant is in the UK we won't know about it until they go to a doctor.

Symptoms of mpox take about seven days to present themselves and between 14 and 21 days to pass, meaning that if a person has it they won't actually know for some time.

Britain is preparing for possible outbreaks of mpox in a number of ways.

They're making clinicians aware of the deadly disease so someone who does have it can be more quickly identified as suffering from mpox, as well as boosting availability for rapid testing.

There are also protocols in place for the safe care of possible patients to avoid the disease being transmitted around once someone is receiving treatment.

Preparations also include having stockpiles of mpox vaccine ready to use to protect people against the disease.

A rash is one of the early symptoms of mpox. (Getty Stock Photo)

Symptoms of mpox commonly include a rash, fever, sore throat, headache, aching muscles, back pain, swollen lymph nodes and a feeling of low energy.

While the WHO has declared a global health emergency that is not a reason to start panicking, a calm and reasonable response is the order of the day.

Virologist Dr Cheryl Walter previously told LADbible that her educated guess was that Britain wouldn't be going into lockdown in response to mpox.

She noted that the vaccine availability and antiviral medication we already have on hand to treat mpox makes it a very different situation to the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic.

Dr Walter said that most people would be 'absolutely fine', though if anyone did get mpox they might have to isolate for a while to avoid the spread of disease.