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The World Health Organization said it had received reports of cases from 26 countries in the past month. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press conference that Mpox “remains a threat to global health.”
South Africa recently reported 20 cases, including three deaths, “the first cases in the country since 2022.” He said none of the patients had traveled abroad, “which suggests that confirmed cases are a small fraction of all cases and that community transmission is still ongoing.”
The situation is particularly worrying in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where a new strain of the virus has been circulating since September.
No signs of slowing down
Tedros added that the epidemic showed “no signs of slowing down”. A total of 11,000 cases have been reported, including 445 deaths, with children being the worst affected.
Rosamund Lewis, a World Health Organization expert on monkeypox, stressed that the organization is “very worried”
“There is a risk that the virus has spread across borders and that it will continue to spread because the borders with neighbouring countries are so porous,” she said.
It is always advisable to remain vigilant
Mpox was first identified in humans in 1970 in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and has since been confined primarily to West and Central African countries, with patients usually being infected by animals.
But as of May 2022, Mpox virus infection has occurred worldwide, primarily affecting gay and bisexual men. The culprit is the Clade II subtype
A new, more virulent strain has been spreading in the Democratic Republic of Congo since last September, also through sexual contact between homosexuals, with the epidemic first spreading among prostitutes. Tests showed it was a new variant of Clade I, the result of a mutation called Clade Ib.
The global “monkeypox” outbreak two years ago led the World Health Organization to declare a Public Health Emergency of International Concern in July 2022. The WHO ended its highest level of alert in May 2023, but still recommends vigilance.
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