As of 2024, Australia had seen a significant decrease in mpox cases. By October 22 there were just 203 confirmed infections, according to the latest statistics 【11†source】. The Australian states of Victoria and New South Wales have seen most of these cases. Experts credit this decline to focused public health efforts and high rates of vaccine uptake, especially among high-risk populations. Melbourne-based sexual health clinician Jason Ong emphasises the importance of remaining watchful for the virus. At the same time, Dr Arthur Wong, a sexual health physician and conjoint lecturer at the Kirby Institute, reinforces this essential message.
The mpox virus is divided into two major clades—clade 1 and clade 2—that are each split into several subclades. Clade 2 has been the most worrisome clade, circulating widely in most of Australia. Now, as clade 1b emerges, the health community is alarmed. Even with the calmer case counts reported this year, experts remain deeply alarmed. They are most worried about the risk of an outbreak with the increased transmissibility of overseas variants.
Vaccination Rates Show Improvement
A recent survey, conducted by UNSW’s Centre for Social Research in Health, paints a compelling picture. Approximately 9.9 percent of respondents got one vaccine dose, and almost 49 percent finished the two-dose vaccination regimen. As of this first week of 2022, over 19,435 people have received at least one dose. Australia’s COVID vaccine rollout increased their vaccine capacity, which allowed them to quickly roll out 115,265 vaccine doses to protect against mpox from 2022-2024.
Arthur Wong explained that educating the public to recognize and respond to mpox symptoms is key. This simple awareness goes a long way toward keeping transmission rates low.
“One of the things that we’ve achieved … was that we raised quite high levels of public awareness of symptoms, which helps reduce onward transmission,” – Arthur Wong.
Even with these optimistic trends, Andrew Grulich emphasized that there is much more work to be done to increase vaccination rates. He cautioned that unless there’s a concerted effort to raise these figures even further, localized cluster outbreaks would be possible.
“Only if we get vaccination rates up further can we be quite certain we won’t see a large outbreak,” – Andrew Grulich.
Monitoring Emerging Variants
Today, health officials continue to watch the mpox situation here at home and around the world. This suggests that Australia is only dealing with clade 2 right now, noted Jason Ong. Clade 1b is a particularly dangerous threat because it has made the jump into the general population.
“Clade 1b is not similar to the clade 2 clusters in the men who have sex with men population, the clade 1b can go into the general population, so that’s the one we’re watching very closely,” – Jason Ong.
Because Australia has only had two cases of clade 1b as yet detected. The initial case reported in May, with the second case reported in August. He called for a renewed spotlight on innovative vaccination strategies wherever mpox is appearing.
“It is really important wherever mpox occurs that we continue to focus on a vaccination-based approach,” – Andrew Grulich.
Providers on the frontlines U.S. health experts still look closely at outbreaks abroad that show an increased transmissibility, staying on guard for any return to our shores.
Behavioral Changes Contributing to Decline
Combined with an extensive vaccination effort, shifts in sexual behavior have played a critical role in reducing mpox transmission in high-risk populations. In the height of the mpox epidemic, Jason Ong noticed an interesting phenomenon. A large number of gay and bisexual men adopted safer sex practices or decreased their partner volume.
“At the height of the mpox epidemic a lot of GBMSM had safer sex or reduced partners and that had a massive impact on [cases],” – Jason Ong.
To this day, residents of higher-income countries hold the misconception that mpox causes severe illness, Ong said. In addition, disease may be mild or asymptomatic in some cases. This variability in presentation can cause cases to be underreported.
“So it might be mpox cases are a lot higher but they’re not turning up to doctors, they’re not getting swabs done so we might not be detecting these kinds of endemic cases that are circulating in the community,” – Arthur Wong.
The Jynneos vaccine for mpox is now available throughout Australia. This expanded access, along with increased staff capacity, has played a major role in reducing the county’s caseload.
