Around 14,700 confirmed cases of Mpox, including 66 deaths, were reported in 20 African countries between January 2024 and January 5, 2025, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Saturday (January 11).
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| A patient with monkeypox receives treatment at a medical center in South Kivu province, Democratic Republic of Congo, August 31, 2024. |
| Photo : Xinhua/VNA/CVN |
However, confirmed cases represent a portion of suspected cases, noted WHO, which previously reported that a significant number of suspected cases remain untested and “are therefore never confirmed” in countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), due to limited diagnostic capacity.
The ongoing epidemic is fueled by several variants of the virus, including the Clade Ib variant, which is mainly spreading in the DRC and neighboring countries, the WHO said in its latest report.
Imported travel-related cases of the Clade Ib variant and secondary transmissions have also been detected outside Africa, WHO said, noting that the imported cases involved adults who had traveled during their incubation period. or showing early symptoms, and who were diagnosed upon arrival in the country.
This variant, detected in the eastern province of South Kivu in the DRC, is estimated to have appeared around mid-September 2023, according to a previous WHO report.
The travel-related Mpox cases highlight challenges in surveillance capacities between countries, including resource constraints and limited access to diagnostic tests, WHO warned. She urged Member States to maintain and strengthen monkeypox surveillance to improve case detection and reporting.
The WHO declared in August 2024 that mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, was a public health emergency of international concern, sounding the alarm about the potential increased transmission of the disease globally.
The WHO statement comes after the Africa CDC (Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) deemed the ongoing mpox outbreak a public health emergency for the continent. According to the African Union health agency, the number of new cases of mpox reported in 2024 represents an increase of 160% compared to the same period in 2023.
Xinhua/VNA/CVN
