Dr Patrick Otim, who is a Medical Officer at WHO’s Regional Office for Africa says the declaration as a public health emergency of international concern is the highest alarm that can be raised within the global public health architecture and is likely to galvanise all member States into taking action.

Global health officials on Thursday confirmed an infection with a new strain of the mpox virus in Sweden and linked it to a growing outbreak in Africa, the first sign of its spread outside the continent, a day after the WHO had declared the disease a global public health emergency.

“Most importantly, we need to now put together a global,  co-ordinated co-operation and solidarity to help the countries that have active outbreaks to be able to contain them quite quickly. Currently we have this year 12 countries on our continent that have reported m-pox cases, but we have nine that we classify as having an active outbreak. That means that they have reported at least a case in the last 42 days. Now out of those nine countries, there are two that we are worried about, where we are seeing increased transmission,”  said Otim.

“That is the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where we have seen significant increase in both the number of suspected cases and confirmed cases, as well as Burundi which first declared an outbreak on July 25, and by yesterday they have now confirmed over 100 cases, which been reported from 24 out of their 49 districts,” said Otim.

Otim says other countries, such as South Africa, have been able to get the outbreak under control and is on a downward trend.

“The neighbours of the DRC, that is Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda, have reported imported cases but we have not seen community transmission established in those countries. So, we continue to encourage and support them to maintain a heightened level of surveillance so that if there are additional cases”.

--ChannelAfrica--