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The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention declared its first public health emergency on August 13 as mpox, a virus commonly known as “monkeypox,” spread into several countries that never had reported cases.
A variant of the clade I strain, the more lethal of two clades, has spread from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) into Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda. The countries reported their first-ever mpox infections in the month leading up to August 13, according to the journal Nature. The DRC reported nearly 2,400 suspected cases and 56 deaths in one week in early August alone.
The virus also is surging in the Central African Republic. Last month the government declared an outbreak as the disease crept from rural areas into the capital, Bangui, according to Kenya’s The Star.
Dr. Jean Kaseya, director-general of the Africa CDC, said the agency’s August 13 declaration “is a clarion call to action. It is a recognition that we can no longer afford to be reactive. We must be proactive and aggressive in our efforts to contain and eliminate this threat.”
Kaseya said the action will mobilize resources and let the Africa CDC form partnerships, strengthen health systems, educate people and deliver life-saving interventions.
The Africa CDC also has reached an agreement with the European Union’s health task force and manufacturer Bavarian Nordic to procure and distribute more than 200,000 mpox vaccine doses in Africa. The vaccine requires two doses four weeks apart. Full protection kicks in two weeks after that.
Authorities still were negotiating to get 2 million doses by year’s end and another 10 million by the end of 2025, Ngashi Ngongo, the Africa CDC’s chief of staff, told Al Jazeera.
A day after the Africa CDC declaration, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced a “public health emergency of international concern,” its highest level. It’s the second time in as many years that the WHO has issued an mpox alert, Al Jazeera reported.
Mpox often includes a rash of painful and itchy blisters on the face, hands, feet, chest or genitals. The rash will scab before healing. Other symptoms are fever, chills, swollen lymph nodes, exhaustion, muscle and backaches, headaches, nasal congestion, coughing, and a sore throat.
The disease originates with animals but can be passed from person to person through close physical contact, including sex, and through contact with skin, saliva, mucus and other bodily fluids. The virus also can spread through face-to-face encounters such as talking and breathing, and through contact with contaminated objects, fabrics and surfaces.
Clade I is the most severe form of mpox, and a variant of this strain is behind the latest Central African outbreak. Up to 10% of infected people die in clade I outbreaks. Clade II caused a global outbreak that began in 2022 and spread all over the world. More than 99.9% survive it, according to the U.S. CDC. It is endemic to West Africa.
According to the WHO, officials logged 99,176 mpox cases in 116 countries or territories between January 1, 2022, and June 30, 2024. Of those, 208 people died.
Conditions in the restive eastern DRC complicate a response. Case numbers have spiked in two years’ time, tripling in 2023, according to Doctors Without Borders (MSF). That year, more than 14,600 suspected cases resulted in 654 deaths.
Between January and August this year, the DRC has seen about 14,000 suspected cases and more than 500 deaths. Mpox has been found in camps for displaced people in North Kivu province.
“There is a real risk of an explosion, given huge population movements in and out of the DRC,” MSF reported.
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