The mpox virus has been detected in San Francisco’s wastewater, after the disease was declared a “public health emergency of international concern” by the World Health Organization (WHO).
The WastewaterSCAN Dashboard, a public health tool used to monitor infectious diseases within communities, shows that mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, was detected in southeast San Francisco on July 26, August 11 and August 12.
It is important to note that it is not clear whether these detections come from human sources.
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Newsweek has contacted the city’s health department and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which is responsible for managing the city’s wastewater treatment, for more information.
San Francisco’s database on the virus, Mpox data and reports, does not show any data for August yet, but does show one case recorded in July.
In May, the San Francisco Health Department encouraged people to take care of their sexual health as summer approaches by being fully vaccinated for mpox.
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It said: “While there is not currently a rise in mpox cases in San Francisco, the virus continues to circulate in areas in the United States.
“In addition, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is monitoring an outbreak of a different strain of the mpox virus that is currently spreading in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and that causes more severe disease.”
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Neighboring Congo has seen 96 percent of all the 17,000 suspected cases across Africa and 517 confirmed deaths since the start of 2024, according to the CDC. The Central African country is one of 14 that have reported outbreaks so far this year.
Mpox came to the fore during a global outbreak in 2022, affecting the U.S., Europe, Australia and many other countries. The virus comes in two “flavors”—clade I and clade II—and spreads through close contact.
The previous outbreak in the U.S. and Europe was driven by the clade II form of the virus and was mostly spread through sexual and intimate contact, with men who have sex with men being at the highest risk of infection. However, the current surge in Africa is being driven by a new variant of the clade I virus, called clade Ib, which is thought to cause more severe disease than previous variants.
On Thursday, Sweden announced the first case of clade I mpox variant outside of Africa.
Sweden’s public health agency said in a statement: “A person who sought care at Region Stockholm has been diagnosed with mpox caused by the clade I variant. It is the first case caused by clade I to be diagnosed outside the African continent.
“In this case, a person has been infected during a stay in the part of Africa where there is a major outbreak of mpox clade I. The person in Sweden who has been confirmed to be infected has received care and rules of conduct.”
Just the day before, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: “This is something that should concern us all…The potential for further spread within Africa and beyond is very worrying.”
