TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan’s Centers for Disease Control announced Tuesday that four new locally transmitted Mpox cases were confirmed between June 24 and Monday, marking the highest weekly count so far this year.

All four cases involve men in their 30s, with two residing in Taipei, one in New Taipei, and one in Tainan. They developed symptoms between June 17 and 23, and each had engaged in intimate contact with anonymous partners via dating apps, complicating efforts to trace the sources of infection, per CNA.

Mpox, a zoonotic disease primarily transmitted from rodents and primates to humans, has two known viral clades. Clade I carries an estimated fatality rate of 10%, while clade II is associated with a lower fatality rate of about 1%, according to the CDC.

Typical symptoms of Mpox infection include fever, chills, sweating, headache, muscle pain, swollen lymph nodes, and extreme fatigue. Children and immunocompromised individuals are particularly vulnerable to severe disease caused by clade IIb, a subgroup of clade II, which may lead to complications such as secondary bacterial infections, pneumonia, and sepsis.

Among the new patients, three had not received any Mpox vaccination. CDC Spokesperson Lo Yi-chun (羅一鈞) said that summer is a peak season for Mpox transmission in Taiwan and urged those who have not yet completed their second vaccine dose to do so promptly for full protection.

As of June 30, a total of 99,260 people in Taiwan have received at least one dose of the Mpox vaccine, with 68,193 completing the recommended two-dose regimen. Since the beginning of 2025, Taiwan has reported 13 local and three imported Mpox cases.