Africa CDC warns mpox is not under control, appeals for resources

African Union health watchdog’s chief has said mpox outbreak is ‘still on the upward trend generally’ as cases spread.

The African Union’s health watchdog has warned that the mpox outbreak was still not under control and appealed for resources to avoid a “more severe” pandemic than COVID-19.

“The situation is not yet under control, we are still on the upward trend generally,” Ngashi Ngongo from the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) told a briefing on Thursday.

More than 1,100 people have died of mpox in Africa, where some 48,000 cases have been recorded since January, according to the CDC.

Cases were still increasing in several countries as the continent struggled to contain another major outbreak coming on the heels of COVID-19 that exposed weaknesses in Africa’s health system.

So far, 19 countries in Africa have reported cases of mpox after an infection was detected in Mauritius, popular with tourists attracted to its stunning white beaches and crystal-clear waters.

Yet the funds to contain the outbreak were in short supply, Africa CDC warned.

“What we need is the continuous political and financial mobilisation,” Ngongo said, adding that this was a necessary measure to stop mpox from being another pandemic “which would be much more severe than COVID-19”.

Mpox, previously known as monkeypox, is caused by a virus transmitted to humans by infected animals but can also be passed from human to human through close physical contact.

The viral disease related to smallpox causes fever, body aches, swollen lymph nodes and a rash that forms into blisters, and has two main subtypes – clade 1 and clade 2.

The United Kingdom announced on Wednesday that it had detected the country’s first case with the latest mpox variant, clade 1b. It has also been detected in Sweden and Germany.

Central Africa, which has been hardest hit by the outbreak, accounts for 85.7 percent of cases and 99.5 percent of deaths on the continent.

The majority of deaths have been in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the epicentre of the outbreak, which launched a vaccination drive earlier this month.