The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the Mpox outbreak, commonly known as Monkeypox, a global health emergency, as cases continue to climb in Africa.

This comes after an independent expert group met yesterday, August 14, 2024, to determine if the rising spread of the Mpox virus in Africa warrants a global health emergency declaration.

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, proclaimed the state of emergency, saying, “Today, the emergency committee met and advised me that the situation constitutes a public health emergency of international concern.”

“I’ve taken that advise to heart. It is concerning that a new clade of Mpox has been found and is spreading quickly throughout the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It has also been found in neighboring countries where Mpox had not previously been recorded, and there is a chance that it will spread farther throughout Africa and beyond.”

With over 500 deaths from the Mpox outbreak, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) declared earlier this week that the outbreaks constituted a public health emergency and requested assistance from other countries to halt the virus’s spread.

According to a recent report by the Africa CDC, mumps cases and deaths have been reported from 13 countries this year, with the Congo accounting for almost 96% of cases and deaths.

Compared to the same time last year, there have been 160% more cases and 19% more deaths. More than 14,000 cases and 524 fatalities have been reported thus far.

“Mpox is now a threat to many more neighbors in and around central Africa,” stated Salim Abdool Karim, the chair of the Africa CDC emergency committee and an expert in infectious diseases from South Africa.

He mentioned that the new strain of Mpox that is emerging from the Congo seems to have a 3-4% fatality rate.

The sub-region has seen a spike in cases of monkeypox, prompting the Ghana Health Service

(GHS) to announce that it is revising its emergency response protocols. Ghana reported 120 cases of monkeypox in 2022; of those, four were fatal.

In 2023, there were eight cases. Dr. Franklin Asiedu Bekoe, the Director of Public Health at GHS, stated that because there are currently no instances reported in the nation, physicians are already receiving new training in case of early case detection.

Our focus is on early detection, and we are fortunate to have a reference lab that has enhanced our case confirmation compared to our previous reliance solely on Noguchi. He detailed the process of sensitization as well.

Over 14,000 Mpox cases and 524 deaths have been reported this year, a significant increase from 2023.

The WHO Director-General noted that outbreaks occur due to different clades, with clade 1b being more easily transmitted through sexual networks.

Around 90 cases of successor clade 1b have been reported in neighboring countries.

Burundi, Rwanda, Kenya, and the Central African Republic are among the countries experiencing an increase in cases.

The Africa CDC reported a 160% increase in cases and 19% increase in fatalities.

BY: APPIANIMAA MERCY