Mpox incidence and deaths are increasing in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) as the central African country awaits vaccines from the United States and Japan, the health minister said on Monday.
This year’s toll has escalated in recent days from 16,000 cases and 548 deaths to 16,700 cases and “a little more than 570” deaths, according to Health Minister Samuel-Roger Kamba.
“We are talking about a continental emergency,” Kamba said at a press conference as the World Health Organization (WHO) urged affected countries to ramp up vaccination programs to combat a more lethal strain of mpox.
On Wednesday, the World Health Organization designated the mpox outbreak in Africa a worldwide health emergency. Since July, outbreaks have been recorded in Kenya, Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda. The new strain has also been found in Sweden.
The United States has committed 50,000 vaccine doses for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, while Japan agreed to deliver 3.5 million doses, “only for children,” according to a medical source who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The source said that DRC “plans to vaccinate four million people including 3.5 million children”.
“I hope by the next week we will already be able to see the vaccines arriving,” Kamba said.
“The vaccine is a solution to our problems,” he added, urging people to get jabbed.
“Our strategic vaccination plan is ready. We are just waiting for the vaccines to arrive.”
WHO calls for vaccines
Cases have already been reported in all 26 provinces of the country of around 100 million people.
The WHO has classified the outbreak as a “public health emergency of international concern,” the highest alert level.
On Monday, it issued new guidelines for fighting the spike, including “the agile adaptation of immunization strategies and plans to concerned areas.”
It urged governments to “scale up efforts to thoroughly investigate cases and outbreaks of mpox disease” in order to better understand its transmission and prevent it from spreading “to household members and communities”.
Health officials must report new cases weekly and “identify, monitor, and support the contacts of people with mpox to prevent onward transmission,” it stated.
It also stated that governments must be prepared to give food and other assistance to mpox patients, “including, as warranted and possible, isolation in care centres and guidance for home-based care”.
The WHO stated that there must be improved “cross-border collaboration” to monitor and address probable mpox cases “without resorting to general travel and trade restrictions that unnecessarily impact local, regional, or national economies.”
The WHO reports that clade 1b, a more lethal and transmissible variant of mpox, is responsible for approximately 3.6 percent of deaths, with children being especially vulnerable.
Kamba stated that mpox is reaching “more and more young people” in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with many youngsters under the age of 15 infected.
Since the beginning of the year, Africa has reported 18,737 suspected or confirmed cases of mpox, including 1,200 instances in a single week, according to the African Union health office on Saturday.
The virus, previously known as monkeypox, was discovered in 1958 in Denmark in monkeys held for scientific purposes.
It was originally detected in humans in 1970, in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Mpox is caused by a virus that is transferred to people by infected animals, but it can also spread from person to person through intimate personal contact.
The condition causes fever, muscle pains, and huge, boil-like skin sores.