Global health officials on Thursday confirmed an infection with a new strain of the mpox virus in Sweden and linked it to a growing outbreak in Africa, the first sign of its spread outside the continent a day after the World Health Organization declared the disease a global public health emergency. Swedish health officials said at a press conference that the person was infected while in Africa with the clade Ib type of mpox involved in the recent outbreak. "The emergence of a case on the European continent could spur rapid international spread of mpox," said Lawrence Gostin, a public health expert and professor at Georgetown Law in Washington.