Health authorities in Argentina have announced plans to inspect and quarantine a cargo ship currently in its waters after a crew member exhibited symptoms of mpox. The country's health ministry, through a spokesperson, confirmed that the border health service would carry out the inspection and has already been in contact with the ship's crew.
According to MarineTraffic, a ship tracking service, the Liberia-flagged vessel, named Ina-Lotte, was anchored in a river near its destination in San Lorenzo as of 6:10 p.m. ET. The ship had previously docked in Santos, Brazil.
Medical personnel are scheduled to board the vessel to assess whether the crew member's symptoms align with mpox. If confirmed, samples will be collected for further analysis. The ship will remain in harbor, and the entire crew will be quarantined until the test results are available.
The health ministry has not yet disclosed the number of people on board the Ina-Lotte. However, on Friday, they emphasized the need to strengthen border health controls in Argentina. This follows the World Health Organization's (WHO) recent declaration of a public health emergency of international concern due to an mpox outbreak in parts of Africa.
Other Latin American countries, including Colombia, El Salvador, Venezuela, and Mexico, have also implemented similar surveillance measures.
The outbreak involves a deadlier strain of the virus known as clade 1b, which is spreading rapidly in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and has reached at least four other previously unaffected African countries.
Mpox, characterized by two genetic clades—1 and 2—is a disease with distinct genetic and clinical features. Clade 2 was responsible for the 2022 outbreak, but clade 1b is associated with more severe illness.
While the World Health Organization has stated that the mpox outbreak is not the next COVID-19, they have emphasized the importance of a coordinated global response. WHO's Europe director, Hans Kluge, stressed that although more research is needed on the clade 1b strain, the spread can be controlled with known measures. The urgency is particularly high in Africa, where the spread is most severe.
The WHO declared a global health emergency last week in response to the clade 1b spread, which had previously been confined to the DRC. The strain has since been detected in Sweden, marking the first case outside of Africa.
Mpox, long found in central and western Africa, began spreading to Europe and North America in 2022. The WHO had initially declared a global health emergency for mpox in July 2022 but ended that declaration in May 2023.