2024-08-13 15:14:24
Africa CDC, the public health agency of the African Union, is not waiting for approval from the World Health Organization (WHO) to announce “public health emergency” faced with mpox epidemic (for monkey monkey or monkeypox) is ongoing in many countries on the continent. “This campaign is not just a strategy, it is a clarion call to action”Jean Kaseya, head of the African CDC, on Tuesday, August 13.
This announcement comes, in fact, the day before the meeting of the emergency committee of the WHO, which must also decide whether the situation is a public health emergency of international concern, i.e. the highest sanitary level. A total of 38,465 cases of mpox for 1,456 deaths have been recorded in 16 African countries since January 2022, with a 160% increase in cases in 2024 compared to the previous year, according to the data published last week by the pan-African agency.
The classification of the mpox epidemic should essentially make it possible to release funds for access to vaccines and to provide a coordinated response. “It’s an identity that we can no longer afford to react toadded Jean Kaseya. We must be proactive and aggressive in our efforts to contain and eradicate this epidemic. »
A new, deadly strain
Formerly known as monkeypox, mpox is a viral disease that spreads from animals to humans but is also spread through physical contact with a person who has the virus. Humans first discovered the disease in 1970 in the former Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
In 2022, a global epidemic finally spread under the new strain in around a hundred countries where the disease had not spread, mainly affecting homosexuals and bisexual men. WHO then ordered a maximum alert in July 2022 in the face of the outbreak of cases worldwide, then lifted less than a year later, in May 2023. The epidemic has caused some 140 deaths from the 90 000 cases.
But for a year, the African continent is facing the spread of a new strain, found in the DRC in September 2023 and is more deadly and widespread than the previous ones. The latter causes visible skin lesions all over the body, while the former are localized by skin lesions and localized lesions, on the mouth, face or genitals.
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