South Korea has confirmed two more cases of mpox to bring the country's total to 20.

According to the KDCA on Thursday, the two patients are South Korean nationals, one living in Gyeonggi Province and the other in North Chungcheong Province, who have not recently traveled abroad.

South Korea reported the first case of mpox last June and the first five cases were linked to overseas travel, but the recent 15 infections, all of which were reported after April 7 of this year, were locally transmitted to individuals with no recent overseas travel history.

While health authorities believe there is a low probability that the latest mpox infections will become an epidemic, the infection disease crisis alert was raised nonetheless last week to the second-lowest level of "caution" on the four-tier scale.