By Spy Uganda
Kampala: The mpox outbreak in Africa is still not under control, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) warned on Thursday, adding that cases were still increasing in several countries.
The World Health Organization declared the recent outbreak of the disease a public health emergency of international concern after the new variant was identified.
Countries in the continent are struggling to respond to another major outbreak coming at the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic that exposed weak health systems that were unprepared to deal with a major public health crisis.
The number of mpox cases in Africa has surged 177%, and deaths have increased 38.5% compared with the same period a year ago, data from the Africa CDC showed.
“We can say today that mpox is not under control in Africa. We still have this increase of cases that is worrying for all of us,” Jean Kaseya, director general of Africa CDC, told a weekly briefing on the outbreak.
In one week 2,912 new cases were reported compared with the previous week including a new country, Morocco, where a case was reported, confirming the spread of the disease in all four regions of the continent.
So far, 15 of the 55 member states of the African Union have reported cases, Africa CDC said.
“We still have people dying from mpox in Africa. In one week, we lost 14 people,” Kaseya added.
He added that in some countries, such as Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo, two strains of the disease were in circulation, but because surveillance and testing systems were not robust enough, it was impossible to tell if that was the case in other countries.
Kaseya said Rwanda had started its vaccination campaign, while the Democratic Republic of Congo, the epicentre of the outbreak, is set to start vaccinations in early October.
Mpox, or monkeypox, had been spreading largely unnoticed in Africa for years before the 2022 outbreak affected over 70 countries, as stated by Dr. Dimie Ogoina, chair of WHO’s mpox emergency committee.
While the previous outbreak primarily affected gay and bisexual men, mpox in Africa is now transmitted through sexual contact as well as close interactions among children, pregnant women, and other vulnerable populations.
Most individuals over 50 were likely vaccinated against smallpox, which may offer some protection against mpox; however, Africa’s predominantly young population is largely unvaccinated and therefore more susceptible, according to Ogoina.
The Africa CDC is developing a coordinated response plan for the outbreaks, which will be presented to African leaders for consideration at a meeting this month.
