Summary
The mpox outbreaks in Africa are a global emergency, the World Health Organization said Wednesday. Cases have been confirmed in children and people in more than a dozen countries.
Early this week, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that the mpox cases were a public health emergency because they had killed more than 500 people and asked for help from around the world to stop the virus from spreading.
“This is something we should all be worried about… “It is very worrying that the disease could spread even more in Africa and beyond,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO. WHO’s top level of alert is a global emergency, but that doesn’t always mean that a disease is very contagious or deadly.
Because there aren’t many vaccines on the region and a new strain of the virus is spreading, the Africa CDC worried that the virus could spread to other countries.
“We are now in a situation where (mpox) poses a risk to many more neighbors in and around central Africa,” said Salim Abdool Karim, the head of the Africa CDC emergency group and an expert in infectious diseases from South Africa. He said that the new strain of mpox that is moving from Congo seems to kill about 3–4% of people who get it.
This year, mumps has been found in 13 countries, but more than 96% of all cases and deaths have been in Congo, the Africa CDC said before.
When you compare this time last year to this time this year, cases are up 160% and deaths are up 19%. There have been over 14,000 cases and 524 deaths so far.
The Africa CDC said that almost 70% of cases in Congo are in kids younger than 15 years old, who also made up 85% of deaths.
What is mpox?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that mpox, which is also called monkeypox, is related to the variola virus, which causes smallpox, the vaccinia virus, which is used in the smallpox vaccine, and the cowpox virus. It was found in a group of monkeys in 1958, and the first case of it in a person was in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1970. However, it has been seen in people in other countries as well.
It spread to more than 70 countries and mostly affected gay and queer men. In 2022, the WHO called mpox a worldwide emergency. Not even 1% of the people who got sick died in that outbreak.
New form of mpox symptoms
Scientists reported earlier this year that a new strain of the more dangerous form of mpox had shown up in a mining town in Congo. They were afraid that this strain would be easier to spread. Most of the time, mumps is spread by close touch with affected people, such as through sex.
Lesions from earlier mpox cases were mostly found on the chest, hands, and feet. The new form, on the other hand, has milder symptoms and lesions on the genitals. Because of this, it’s harder to spot, and people may also spread it to others without realizing it.
Can we stop the spread of mpox?
Many of the medicines and treatments that were used to stop the spread of mpox in the West during the outbreak in 2022 have not been available in Africa.
Michael Marks, a professor of medicine at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said that since the West does not have any approved mpox vaccines, officials might think about giving people smallpox shots instead.
He said, “We need a lot of vaccine so that we can vaccinate the people who are most at risk.” This would include sex workers, children, and adults who live in areas where the disease is spreading.