Roche’s chief executive said he had been informed that more mpox cases had appeared in Europe than previously reported and that the Swiss group could quickly provide ten times the number of diagnostic tests than are currently required.

“It looks like there are already more mpox cases in Europe, maybe not all of them have reached the media yet,” Thomas Sinecker said in a phone call after the drug and diagnostics company reported quarterly sales.

Sineker pointed to the detection of the first case of the new mpox virus variant announced yesterday, Tuesday, from Germany.

The Robert Koch Institute for Public Health in Germany announced yesterday that the risk to the health of the general population is small.

Demand for Roche’s mpox tests “isn’t that high yet, but we could handle ten times the demand,” Shineker added.

In the event of a pandemic situation with a much faster spread of the virus, Roche would need six to nine months to further boost production of diagnostic tests, the company’s CEO added.

The World Health Organization declared the new form of the virus a global health emergency in August after an outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo spread to neighboring countries.

The first indication of the spread outside of Africa came on August 15 when global health officials confirmed a case of the new mpox virus strain in Sweden.