A total of 15 African countries have been affected by the Mpox epidemic since 2024, the WHO said on Friday, warning of various variants that add “levels of complexity”, late diagnosis and limited access to treatment in several of the most affected countries.
KINSHASA/BRAZZAVILLE, Oct. 11 (Xinhua) — A total of 15 African countries have been affected by the Mpox epidemic since 2024, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday, warning of various variants which add “layers of complexity”, late diagnosis and limited access to treatment in several of the most affected countries.
According to a latest WHO report on Mpox in the African region, a total of 15 countries have been affected by the disease and have active transmission, defined as cases reported in the last six weeks.
A total of 37,325 suspected cases, including 996 deaths and 6,602 confirmed cases, have been reported since the start of 2024 in the region, WHO said, noting that a significant number of suspected cases have not yet been identified. been tested and therefore “are never confirmed” due to limited diagnostic capacity.
Ghana reported its first case on October 1. The patient, a boy, is in isolation with contact tracing underway, while sequencing is still underway to determine the clade. Ghana had previously identified and reported 120 cases of Mpox in 2022 and eight cases in 2023, WHO said.
However, the WHO did not include Zambia, which announced on Thursday that it had confirmed the country’s first recorded case of Mpox. According to Zambian authorities, the patient reported symptoms of muscle pain, fatigue and sore throat, his blood samples tested positive for Mpox and is at a local hospital.
The DRC, which reported 30,766 suspected cases, or about 82.4% of cases reported in the region, faces a higher mortality rate due to late diagnosis and difficult access to treatment in several areas. health. Only 39% of suspected cases will have been tested in 2024, while the positivity rate among tested cases is around 55%.
The region is also grappling with multiple clades of the virus, further complicating response efforts, WHO noted. Clade Ia circulates in the Central African Republic (CAR), while Clade Ib occurs in Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, and Clade IIb is reported in Nigeria and South Africa.
WHO stressed the urgent need to strengthen laboratory capacities, strengthen surveillance systems and improve cross-border coordination, calling on Member States to focus on early detection, implement targeted vaccination campaigns and to scale up public health interventions, particularly in areas experiencing an increase in cases.
The WHO declared Mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, a public health emergency of international concern in mid-August, sounding the alarm about the potential for increased transmission of the disease globally. .
The WHO statement comes after the Africa CDC deemed the ongoing Mpox outbreak a public health emergency for the continent. According to the African Union health agency, the number of new Mpox cases reported in 2024 represents a 160% increase compared to the same period in 2023.
