The World Health Organization (WHO) warns that the spread of mpox in Africa needs to be addressed urgently, especially as a dangerous strain has been detected in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“There is a critical need to address the recent increase in mpox cases in Africa,” said Rosamund Lewis, WHO technical lead on mpox, according to Reuters.
The doctor in charge of Congo’s mpox control program, Cris Kacita, told Reuters there had been around 8,600 cases and 410 deaths this year due to the virus.
In a separate statement, John Claude Udahemuka of the University of Rwanda said the strain spreading in Congo’s hard-to-reach South Kivu province is a mutated version of the virus that has existed in the country for decades, and said that it was extremely dangerous.
Udahemuka said more research is needed to determine how the virus is spreading in South Kivu, but in part it is spreading due to sexual relations.
A less severe form of the virus spread globally in 2021. The global outbreak mainly affected men who had sex with men, but was not limited to just men, Who said.
Vaccines have been widely used to combat the global outbreak but are not available in Congo, Reuters said.
Kacita said there is a risk of cases crossing the country’s borders, as South Kivu borders Rwanda and Burundi.
So far, 24 of Congo’s 26 provinces have been affected and this is the country’s worst mpox epidemic to date.
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