A potentially fatal viral disease, mpox has experienced several epidemics, mainly in Africa, from its first detection in 1970 until the current outbreak of cases on this continent.
Disease of animal origin, causing skin lesions and caused by a virus from the same family as that of smallpox, a disease eradicated since 1980, it has gone through great dates.
Its virus was first isolated in 1958 from macaques. Hence its initial name monkeypox or “monkeypox” in English. Since November 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended the name “mpox”, considered less stigmatizing.
Mpox was first detected in humans in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC, then Zaire), according to the WHO. From this date, sporadic cases of this zoonosis (disease transmitted from animals to humans) have been recorded in rural or forest areas in Central Africa, East Africa and West Africa.
Two distinct groups of mpox viruses are identified: “clade 1” in the Congo Basin and “clade 2” in West Africa.
A first outbreak outside the African continent broke out in the United States: in June 2003, health authorities reported 87 cases (including 20 confirmed by analyses) but no deaths.
The disease is said to have spread there after the contamination of domestic prairie dogs by rodents imported from Ghana themselves carrying the virus.
As of 2017, Nigeria is experiencing “a large-scale epidemic”, with more than 500 suspected cases, more than 200 confirmed cases and a case fatality rate of around 3%, according to the WHO.
Sporadic cases in travelers from Nigeria are reported outside Africa: in Israel, the United Kingdom, Singapore and the United States.
From May 2022, cases are increasing in countries where the disease was not endemic, mainly in Europe and North America.
This outbreak, due to “clade 2”, mainly affects homosexual and bisexual men: the virus is transmitted by prolonged or close direct contact, particularly during sexual intercourse. People with multiple partners are at greater risk.
Targeted vaccination campaigns are being implemented in different affected countries. On July 23, the WHO launched its highest level of alert. A few days later, the very first deaths outside Africa were recorded: two in Spain and one in Brazil.
The WHO raises its alert in May 2023 after having recorded 87,400 cases and 140 deaths for this epidemic.
In 2024, a new epidemic outbreak mainly affects the DRC, with, this time, two concomitant epidemics: one caused by “clade 1”, mainly affecting children, and the other due to the emergence of a new subgroup, “clade 1b”, mainly affecting adults in eastern DRC and, to a lesser extent, neighboring countries: Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Kenya.
The increase in cases pushed the WHO, in mid-August, to once again trigger its highest level of global alert.
The DRC is by far the country most affected by this outbreak: since January, this country has recorded more than 30,000 cases of mpox and nearly 990 deaths, with increased mortality noted among children, according to the latest figures given by the Minister of Health of the country.
According to a global report released on October 3 by Africa CDC (African Union health agency), more than 34,000 cases have been recorded in Africa since the start of the year. The first ever vaccination campaign in Africa began in Rwanda on September 17.
The DRC started its vaccination campaign on October 5, after receiving 265,000 doses of vaccines from the EU and the United States.
Olivier THIBAULT/AFP
A potentially fatal viral disease, mpox has experienced several epidemics, mainly in Africa, from its first detection in 1970 until the current outbreak of cases on this continent. Disease of animal origin, causing skin lesions and caused by a virus from the same family as that of smallpox, a disease eradicated since 1980, it has gone through great…
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