As mpox cases surge in Africa, few treatments and vaccines available

African health officials have reported a 160% increase of mpox early in 2022 with health officials indicating that the threat of mpox spreading remains high due to the absence of adequate treatment or vaccines in Africa. 
 
The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report it published on Wednesday that, mpox, commonly known as monkeypox, had been diagnosed in 10 African countries this year with Congo having over 96 percent of the reported cases as well as the deaths. 
 
Health sector representatives stated that 68/percentage of the patients in Congo are below fifteen years, with 85/percentage of those fatalities. 
 
Figures indicate there had been 14,250 incidences up to this year’s mid point, nearly the number recorded the entire year before. The Africa CDC also reported that overall cases of the disease are 160 percent higher than the first seven months of 2023, while deaths are 19 percent higher at 456. 
 
Swaziland’s envoy said his country is a virus-free zone but Burundi and Rwanda both reported the virus for the first time this week. 
 
New outbreaks were declared this week in Kenya and the Central African Republic; cases have now reached the city’s capital Bangui. 
 
The cases of monkeypox are very worrying and the disease is now affecting the capital region (the Central African Republic’s public health minister, Pierre Somsé, said this on Monday). 
 
On Wednesday, Kenya said that Health Ministry confirmed mpox in a passenger coming from Uganda to Rwanda by road through a border town in Southern region of Kenya. Later in a statement the ministry revealed that an outbreak declaration could be made basing on the fact that one person had mpox. 
 
The Africa CDC stated the mpox fatality rate this year, at about 3%, “has been much higher on the African continent compared to the rest of the world. “ Global mpox emergency in 2022, less than 1% of those infected with the virus died. 
 
This year in January, researchers detected a new strain of the more lethal mpox virus, which can be fatal for up to 10 percent of victims, in a Congolese mining camp that they believed was more transmissible among people. Mpox transmission happens through respiratory droplets from infected persons, touching infected persons, bundle of joy and through sex. 
 
A study of patients admitted in the health facilities from October to January in eastern congo conclude that recent mutation in the virus was due to the on going transmission in people. 
 
The new type of mpox is different from the previous ones and it presents milder clinical signs and skin outbreaks mainly in the genital area, which are not very noticeable. 
 
Doctors Without Borders, the global medical charity, said that mpox outbreak was growing in DR Congo and it was ‘worrisome’; mpox cases were identified in the camps of the internally displaced people in North Kivu province which borders Rwanda. 
 
Many people come and go thus there is a possibility of explosion and Dr. Louis Massing, again the medical director for Congo was able to note this. 
 
All Mpox outbreaks in the west have been brought to an end with the use of vaccines and treatments but barely any of these commodities have been ascertainable in African countries that include Congo. 
 
The populations of affected countries can only beg for vaccines to reach their countries, and as soon as possible to minimize losses, Massing said in a statement. 
 
WHO explained in May that despite the current Ebola outbreak in Africa and the future possible mpox transfer to other countries, not a dime was spent on mpox prevention. 
 
On Tuesday, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations said that it would launch a trial in Congo and other countries in Africa next month involving those who contracted mpox to see if an mpox shot administered after exposure would work to prevent the deadly disease.