Sweden has confirmed its first case of the clade I strain of mpox, the first case to be diagnosed outside of Africa. The news comes after the World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Wednesday that the situation has been deemed a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).According to a statement from the Public Health Agency of Sweden, the individual caught the infection during travel to a part of Africa that is currently dealing with a “major outbreak”, before returning to Sweden. State epidemiologist Magnus Gisslén confirmed that the patient has received medical care.The clade I strain of mpox differs from the clade II strain that spread to dozens of countries – including Sweden – and was declared a PHEIC back in 2022, in that it’s considered more likely to cause severe disease.Mpox is a viral infection that causes symptoms like fever, headache, and muscle aches, which later progress to a rash that can affect skin anywhere on the body. This typically develops into blisters that can be itchy or painful. Complications can include secondary skin infections, pneumonia, eye infections, and sepsis. While most people will make a full recovery within about four weeks, the very young, pregnant people, and those with compromised immune systems are at particular risk of severe disease that can be fatal.The disease is spread through close contact with an infected person. In the clade II outbreak that began in 2022, a major route of transmission has been sexual contact, with men who have sex with men emerging as a particularly at-risk group.Clade I viruses can also spread this way, but authorities are equally concerned about spread via close contact within households, including to children. A person can spread mpox until the rash has completely healed.Swedish authorities stressed that the country is ready to “diagnose, isolate and treat people with mpox safely,” and say the case does not represent a significant risk to the general public.“This case does not require any additional infection control measures in itself, but we take the outbreak of clade I mpox very seriously,” Gisslén said. “We are closely monitoring the outbreak and we are continuously assessing whether new measures are needed.”Numerous outbreaks of clade I mpox in Africa this year – including in Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda, which have never reported mpox before – led to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) declaring a continental public health emergency earlier this week. The agency suggested that cases are being underreported, hiding the true scale of the issue, but said suspected cases in 2024 alone have risen to about 17,000.WHO figures show that there have so far been over 2,100 confirmed cases of mpox across 12 countries in Africa this year, and 13 deaths. This already exceeds the numbers from the whole of 2023. The latest strain of the virus emerged in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which has been particularly hard-hit by mpox over the years, but its rapid spread to so many other countries in recent months has caused concern.There are two approved vaccines for mpox, which can be used as both preventatives and as post-exposure prophylaxis if given soon after contact with an infected person, but supplies to many parts of Africa affected by the virus have been insufficient. In collaboration with the European Commission, Africa CDC has just secured over 215,000 doses of vaccine to be distributed where the need is greatest.Meanwhile, other countries in Europe and elsewhere will continue to monitor the virus. Experts say the spread of this strain of virus outside Africa is not unexpected – albeit, as immunologist Dr Brian Ferguson told Science Media Centre, it is “clearly a concerning development.”

Good news for lunar lovers, as the first Supermoon of the year is fast approaching on August 19 at 6:26 pm UTC. It’s also a double whammy of celestial phenomena: as well as being “super”, the Moon will be “blue” – here’s what that all means.The Moon’s orbit is not quite a perfect circle, so as it travels around the Earth it passes through its closest point (we call it perigee) and its most distant (known as apogee). A Supermoon occurs when the Moon is full and at perigee – and because it is at its closest to us, it appears bigger and brighter, hence the term Supermoon. The difference is difficult to notice with the naked eye, however.Monday’s Supermoon will be the first of four this year, with the others occurring on September 18, October 17, and November 15. Of these, the one in October is tipped to be the closest at 357,364 kilometers (222,055 miles). Next week's approach will be 361,970 kilometers (224,917 miles) – compared to the average Earth-Moon distance of 384,400 kilometers (238,900 miles), that’s pretty close.If you weren’t excited enough at the prospect of a bigger, bolder Moon, the coming Supermoon will also be a Blue Moon – but unfortunately, it won’t be turning a stunning shade of sapphire.There are two definitions of Blue Moon, which have nothing to do with color. The first is a seasonal Blue Moon, the third Full Moon in a season that has four Full Moons. This is the traditional definition and the type we will be seeing on Monday. The other definition refers to the second Full Moon in a single month.Despite what the phrase “once in a Blue Moon” might have you believe, they’re not that uncommon: Blue Moons tend to occur every two to three years.August’s Full Moon is also known as a Sturgeon Moon – the Algonquin tribes in what is now the northeastern USA named it as such after the fish, which are caught more easily this time of year.The upcoming Supermoon Blue Moon extravaganza will be best viewed on Monday evening, but the Moon will appear full for three days, from Sunday morning through early Wednesday. Check out these tips on how to capture it with your smartphone.

Corey Lewandowski is back in the headlines after the 2016 campaign manager was tapped as the 2024 campaign chairman Thursday in a move that puts the hard-charging politico a rung above senior advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles. The move has been brewing for some time. The Trump family had expressed growing frustration with the slow response to the Democrats’ bait-and-switch candidate swap, and jealous, competing power centers within the mid-level ranks of the campaign have only added to the irritation. With just over 80 days left until Election Day, as one Trump veteran put it, “it’s time to get to the races.” LaCivita and Wiles still have their jobs and have voiced public approval for the new hires, but it’s hard to miss that the two veteran politicos promised an orderly operation — and thus far have not delivered. While talks to bring Lewandowski were in motion this past weekend, they’ve quickly progressed toward action. The new chairman began making moves Thursday to reassemble the 2016 team, tapping original talent that had been boxed out or moved on in the hopes of recreating the team of old-school loyalists former President Donald Trump trusts and building out the campaign’s internal muscle. Campaign shake-ups are not unusual on any level. Eight years later, it’s easy to forget how bare bones a campaign an insurgent Trump ran in 2016. His re-election effort was more professional, but when the campaign began to run out of money, campaign manager Brad Parscale was shown the door in July and Bill Stepien was brought in. The ghosts of 2020 still haunt the Trump campaign, which over the past few months has worked to save money by outsourcing its ground game and a lot of its infrastructure to outside organizations and the Republican National Committee and has allowed super PACs to spend like sailors on advertising while holding its own war chest for the special candidate rates later in the race, when things get more expensive. The campaign may have outsourced a bit too much for the family’s liking, however — or at least not shown the results they expected. It’s too early to tell where it’s all going, but the broader public is just starting to pay attention. With just over 80 days left until Election Day, as one Trump veteran put it, “it’s time to get to the races.” Blaze News: Trump campaign brings back Corey Lewandowski Blaze News: Harris campaign's altering headlines misdirects from other Google threats, professor says: 'They don't want us to look at them' Daniel Horowitz: Red-state Republicans embrace the Green New Deal Sign up for Bedford’s newsletter Sign up to get Blaze Media senior politics editor Christopher Bedford's newsletter. IN OTHER NEWS The ballot-measure battle on how to say 'aborting a child’ Abortion is back in the news (as if it ever left). The Supreme Court of Arizona ruled Wednesday that the state’s November ballot measure will include the term “unborn human beings” to describe the person abortion kills. The Wednesday decision overturned a Maricopa County Superior Court decision that had ruled this kind of honesty was somehow biased. The decision has infuriated pro-abortion activists, who wanted the ballot to call babies “fetuses.” They say that’s impartial, because obscuring reality is a favorite — and essential — Democratic tactic for convincing Americans to support abortion any time after the first trimester. It’s tempting to believe this tactic, backed by Arizona’s Republican legislature, might be the future of fighting radically pro-abortion ballot initiatives that have successfully passed even in red states while energizing Democratic voter turnout. There are a couple of problems with this idea, however. First, you need a hard-core legislature, secretary of state, attorney general, etc., willing to push that fight. Then, you need a court willing to call out Democratic misinformation. That’s a hard combo in a lot of states, including those run by Republicans. Montana’s Republican attorney general, for example, fought pro-abortion groups whose proposed ballot language was vague, essentially enshrining in the state constitution that abortion providers can decide when an unborn baby is viable and what constitutes a health risk to the mother. In April, the court rejected his rewrite. Abortion is already legal in the state up to the time of viability, and on Wednesday, that same court overturned a Montana law that required parental assent for children to obtain abortions, citing privacy concerns the U.S. Supreme Court had struck down in relation to abortion in its Dobbs decision. You see: Not all legislators, officials, or courts are up to the task. Neither are all voters. In New York, it’s the Democrats who are currently fighting to put the word “abortion” and the phrase “LGBTQ” on the ballot, arguing that the state election commissioners’ Orwellian use of "gender expression" and "reproductive healthcare and autonomy” in the state’s Equal Rights Amendment didn’t let voters know what’s at stake. “Compare this with what happened post-Dobbs in California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, and Ohio in 2022 and 2023,” the pro-abortion editorial board of the New York Daily News wrote Thursday. In each state, explicit abortion protections were approved by the public to be added to the state constitution with the word "abortion" or explicit abortion restrictions or limitations (again, with the word "abortion") were rejected by the public. In every instance, the protections and the bans, the word "abortion" was used. And in every case, the pro-choice position prevailed, with constitutional protections approved in California, Michigan, and Ohio and constitutional bans rejected in Kansas and Kentucky. It’s hard to see where it’s all going to shake out, but it’s becoming increasingly clear as Democrats battle to take advantage of Americans’ innate libertarian leanings with “pro-choice” ballot measures that the next front will be the war of words. Blaze News: Arizona permitted to call potential victims of abortion initiative 'unborn human babies' in voter pamphlet Blaze News: Harris seized evidence of abortionists' lucrative butchery of babies. Activist reveals who helped him fight back.

OLED gaming monitors have steadily been getting more affordable, with 2024 seeing an explosion in options. However, most of them still cost closer to $1,000 than, say, $500. The AOC Agon Pro AG276QZD, then, is a breath of fresh air, as although its MSRP used to be a bit higher, it's now regularly available for just $599. This incredibly low price for this caliber of display means this AOC screen leaps onto our best gaming monitor guide as the clear go-to option for those seeking the stunning colors, contrast, and gaming speed of an OLED panel without the high cost. However, like the LG 27GR95QE, its poor text clarity means it's not a great all-rounder display for work as well as play. Continue reading AOC Agon Pro AG276QZD review: The cheapest OLED gaming monitor MORE FROM PCGAMESN: AOC AGON Pro AG274QXM review, AOC AGON AG275QXL review, Best gaming monitor

AMD's just-launched Ryzen 9000 CPUs, as well as some older Ryzen CPUs, are being affected by a Windows user account bug that means the chips are running slower in games than they should, depending on the type of user account you're using. The AMD Ryzen Windows bug is holding back performance by an average of 4% on the latest Zen 5 Ryzen 9700X, but a fix is on the way, and there are some workarounds for the issue. The new AMD CPU bug affects what are still otherwise some of the best gaming CPUs you can buy but has been enough to dampen the performance - and thus the reception of - AMD's newest chips. Continue reading AMD Ryzen CPU gaming performance hit by Windows bug, but there’s a fix MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Ryzen 7 7800X3D review, Best gaming CPU, Radeon RX 7800 XT review

Creative Assembly is looking forward to the future of Total War Warhammer 3 now that it’s largely regained its footing as one of the best strategy games on PC. With some rather dramatic wobbles behind it and a positive response to the most recent add-on, the developer is now looking forward to what’s coming next. In a new blog, the team outlines its plans for TWW3 update 5.2, which will see the Dwarfs dive deeper and grow taller than ever before. Continue reading Total War Warhammer 3 update 5.2 fulfills an essential Dwarf fantasy MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Total War: Warhammer 3 DLC, Total War: Warhammer 3 races, Total War: Warhammer 3 review

You’ve journeyed to the center of the universe in No Man’s Sky, breezed through Eve, and unlocked the mysteries of the Chunks in Starfield. It’s time for a new space game - but Star Citizen, the monolithic MMO from Cloud Imperium, seems impenetrably complex (and pricey) to even try. 11 years since the first modules, Star Citizen remains in a pseudo ‘alpha’ state, but the Squadron 42 campaign and transformative 4.0 update are nevertheless on their way. Now, as the community celebrates its favorite ships, the new Star Citizen free-to-play period has begun. If you wanted to take this giant for a spin, now’s the time. Continue reading Gigantic space MMO Star Citizen goes briefly free-to-play MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best simulation games, Best multiplayer games, Best space games

What are the new Pressure codes? Urbanshade's Roblox horror game tasks you with exploring the deadly, monster-filled Hadal Blacksite, so you'll be glad to hear that we've got plenty of Pressure codes to take the edge off. Pressure is just one of many Roblox games with a horror twist, and most of the best also dole out regular freebies. Some highlights include Five Nights TD codes and Ro Ghoul codes. If you want the best chance of avoiding sudden death, redeeming the codes below will net you some free in-game currency. So let's run through the lot and explain how to redeem them. Continue reading Pressure codes August 2024 MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best Roblox games, Roblox promo codes, Roblox music codes

In the early noughties, Nestlé launched a marketing campaign that proudly proclaimed its Yorkie chocolate bar was "not for girls!” – it even had a no-women-allowed sign on the wrapper. Setting aside the moral outrage this evoked in third-wave feminists, this slogan also lit a spark of mutiny in my tweenage self. I had long since disregarded Yorkies as a painfully average chocolate bar, but I saw this marketing slogan as a call for reclamation. “They’re not for girls,” I’d say, breaking off a square. “They're for me.” Such is the case with Black Myth Wukong. Continue reading Black Myth Wukong review - a GOTY contender of epic proportions MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Black Myth Wukong release date, Black Myth Wukong bosses, Best RPG games on PC