Philippines reports first MPOX case of the year

2024-08-25 03:16:31

Health workers walk between wards at the Mpox treatment centre at Nyiragongo General Referral Hospital, north of Goma on August 17, 2024. – With around 16,000 cases recorded since the beginning of the year, the DRC is the focus and epicentre of the epidemic that led the World Health Organisation (WHO) to trigger its highest level of alert at the international level on Wednesday. The province of South Kivu records around 350 new cases per week, according to Dr Justin Bengehya, epidemiologist at the provincial health division of South Kivu. Goma, capital of the province of North Kivu, almost surrounded by an armed rebellion and where hundreds of thousands of displaced people are crammed into makeshift camps, fears a large-scale spread due to promiscuity. (Photo by GUERCHOM NDEBO / AFP)

The Philippines reported its first case of MPOX this year on Monday, but the health ministry has yet to determine whether it is the new, more dangerous variant of the virus that has triggered a global alert.

The WHO on Wednesday declared mpox a public health emergency of international concern, its highest alert level, due to the resurgence of cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and other African countries.

The strain of the virus that is currently on the rise is clade 1b, the most dangerous and contagious of those identified so far.

In addition to the DRC, the new strain has been detected in Sweden and Pakistan in recent days.

The first case of the year in the Philippines was detected in a 33-year-old man who had not traveled outside the country, the Ministry of Health said in a statement, after a public hospital notified authorities.

Authorities are still awaiting sequencing results to determine whether the case corresponds to clade 1b.

“The symptoms began more than a week ago with fever, followed four days later by the appearance of a rash on the face, back, neck, trunk, groin, as well as the palms of the hands and soles of the feet,” the ministry said.

The last case of mpox was reported to authorities in December 2023.

© Agence France-Presse