The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has expressed concern that the Mpox outbreak in Africa remains uncontrolled, with increasing cases reported in several countries.
Jean Kaseya, Director General of the Africa CDC, revealed this during a weekly briefing on the outbreak.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, is a viral disease caused by the monkeypox virus.
It shares similarities with smallpox, but is generally less severe.
Symptoms of Mpox include fever, rash, and swollen lymph nodes.
The disease spreads from animals to humans and between humans through close contact, respiratory droplets and contaminated objects.
In 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) and other health agencies changed the name of monkeypox to “Mpox” to reduce the stigma and discrimination associated with the original name.
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The WHO also declared the recent outbreak a public health emergency of international concern after a new variant was identified.
“Today we can say that Mpox is not under control in Africa. We continue to see an increase in cases, which is worrying for all of us,” Kaseya said.
New cases, deaths
He said that in one week, 2,912 new cases were documented compared to the previous week, and Morocco reported its first case, confirming the spread of the disease in all five regions of the continent.
“So far, 15 of the 55 member states of the African Union have reported cases. People are still dying from Mpox in Africa. In one week, we lost 14 people,” he said.
He added that two strains of the virus are circulating in countries such as Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
However, he said that due to insufficient surveillance and testing systems, it was unclear whether the same applied to other nations.
“Rwanda has launched a vaccination campaign, while the Democratic Republic of Congo, the epicentre of the outbreak, plans to start vaccinations in early October,” he said.
NAN recalls that as of the end of week 35 of 2024, a total of 26,544 cases, including 5,732 confirmed cases and 724 deaths, have been reported in 15 African Union member states across all five regions of Africa.
The continent's case fatality rate stood at 2.73 percent.
Data from the Africa CDC revealed a 177 percent increase in Mpox cases and a 38.5 percent increase in deaths compared to the same period in 2023.
The European Union has delivered vaccine doses to the Democratic Republic of Congo, along with 50,000 doses from the United States.
European countries have pledged hundreds of thousands more doses, while Japan has pledged three million doses.
Outside Africa, cases of Mpox have been detected in countries such as Pakistan, the Philippines, Sweden and Thailand.
On August 14, WHO declared Mpox a global public health emergency due to increasing cases of the new Clade 1b strain.
Meanwhile, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, had secured 500,000 doses of the Mpox vaccine to supply African countries affected by the outbreak.
In addition, Nigeria recently received a donation of 10,000 doses of the Jynneos Mpox vaccine from the United States government.
(YAYA)