Two foreign nationals working for the National Institutes of Health are facing criminal charges for allegedly smuggling in mpox into the U.S.
Mpox, also known as monkeypox, can spread to people via close contact with infected animals, but also via sexual transmission between two people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
On Jan. 25, Dutch national Vincent Munster, 53, the chief of the virology section at the NIH Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Montana, and Cameroonian national Claude Kwe, 38, a research fellow working under Mr. Munster, traveled to Detroit from the Republic of the Congo, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan said.
At the time, the Republic of the Congo was dealing with an mpox outbreak. Federal prosecutors said the two men told Customs and Border Protection that a black case they had with them contained equipment for diagnostics and testing.
The black case instead contained 113 vials held in coolers made of Styrofoam. Out of the 20 vials tested by the time the complaint was filed against Mr. Munster and Mr. Kwe last Tuesday, 17 contained deactivated mpox, one contained chickenpox and the other two contained human DNA, federal prosecutors said.
“These NIH experts apparently broke our laws by smuggling viral pathogens on a packed commercial airplane from an outbreak in the Republic of Congo. Let that sink in,” said U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan Jerome Gorgon Jr.
Mr. Munster and Mr. Kwe each faces charges of conspiracy to smuggle monkeypox into the U.S. and giving false statements to federal law enforcement, federal prosecutors said.
NIH officials told The Associated Press that “this matter is currently under investigation, and NIH is cooperating fully with law enforcement and appropriate authorities. Because this is an ongoing investigation and personnel matter, we are limited in what additional information we can provide at this time.”
Mr. Munster’s lawyer, Mark O’Brien, told The New York Times that the case “sounds a lot more salacious than it actually is” and that Mr. Munster and Mr. Kwe are working on ways to eradicate mpox.
“This is not a terrorism episode. This was done allegedly to further research,” Mr. O’Brien said.
Mr. Kwe’s attorney, who was not identified by name, told the Daily Montanan that Mr. Kwe is “presumed innocent and we will await future proceedings before commenting further.”
The two men have worked together on at least 12 peer-reviewed publications about mpox, according to the Daily Montanan.
