The African Union’s health watchdog has declared a public health emergency over the growing outbreak of Monkey Pox disease on the continent, saying the move is a “clarion call for action”.
“I declare with a heavy heart but with an unyielding commitment to our people, to our African citizens, we declare mpox as public health emergency of continental security,” Jean Kaseya, head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Africa CDC, said during an online media briefing on Tuesday.
“Mpox has now crossed borders, affecting thousands across our continent, families have been torn apart and the pain and suffering have touched every corner of our continent,” he said.
Scientists from the Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, said they are alarmed by the speed at which a new strand of mpox has been spreading.
Since the beginning of the year, more than 13,700 cases and 450 deaths have been recorded in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The virus, which can cause sores across the whole body, has spread to other African countries, including Burundi, the Central African Republic, Kenya and Rwanda.
The declaration of a public health emergency will help governments co-ordinate their response and potentially increase the flow of medical supplies and aid into affected areas.
Health chiefs outside Africa will also be monitoring the situation to assess the risk of the outbreak spreading further.
On 29 July, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said the risk from the mpox virus was “very low” in Europe.
Mpox spreads from animals to humans and between people through close contact with someone who is infected, including through sex, skin-to-skin contact and talking or breathing close to another person.
READ ALSO : WHO calls for urgent action against dangerous mpox strain in Congo
It can cause symptoms such as fever, muscle aches and sores across the body.
If left untreated, mpox can be deadly.
There are two main strains of the virus known to exist. The milder one caused the global outbreak in 2022 that affected Europe, Australia, the US and many other countries and was mainly spread through sexual contact.
The second more deadly strain, endemic in central Africa, is behind the new recently discovered variant in DR Congo.
There are three vaccines that exist but only people at risk or who have been in close contact with an infected person are usually able to have it.
Monkeypox was first identified in 1958 at a laboratory in Copenhagen, Demark when it was discovered in monkeys that had been imported from Singapore a couple of months earlier.
The first case in humans was not reported until 1970 when a nine-month-old boy admitted to a hospital in the Democratic Republic of Congo was found to have been infected with the virus.
Although the young patient lived in an area of tropical rainforest populated by monkeys, doctors were not able to establish if he had recently come into contact with an infected monkey or if it had come from another source. The boy recovered from the infection, but sadly contracted measles a few days later and died.
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