By Ebi Kesiena
The Republic of Congo has officially announced an outbreak of mpox, with 19 confirmed cases spanning five regions, including the capital, Brazzaville.
Health Minister Gilbert Mokoki stated on Wednesday that there have been no fatalities reported so far.
He urged the public to take preventive measures such as avoiding close contact with suspected cases, refraining from contact with animals, and abstaining from handling wild game meat with uncovered hands.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has chosen to use the term mpox instead of monkeypox due to concerns about the stigma and racial connotations associated with the latter.
Mpox, which was initially identified in humans in the neighboring country, Democratic Republic of Congo in 1970, presents symptoms like fever, body pains, and skin lesions.
In 2022, the WHO declared a global health emergency when an outbreak spread to Europe and North America.
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About Mpox
Mpox is an infectious disease caused by monkeypox virus (MPXV), which is endemic in densely forested regions of West, Central and East Africa.
From 1 January through 12 November 2023, a total of 12,569 suspected mpox cases, including 581 suspected mpox deaths (case fatality ratio: 4.6%), have been reported in 156 health zones from 22 out of 26 (85%) provinces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
There are two known clades of MPXV: clade I, previously known as the Congo Basin clade; and clade II, previously called the West African clade; clade II further has two subclades: clade IIa and clade IIb.
Spread in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo
Before April 2023, no formally documented cases of sexual transmission of clade I MPXV were registered globally.
The first known cases were reported when a man, resident in Belgium and with connections to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, tested positive for clade I in Kenge, Kwango province, during a visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Thereafter, sexual contacts of this case in the Democratic Republic of the Congo also tested positive for clade I MPXV, with closely related viral sequences.
11 of the 26 provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo are identified as endemic for mpox, but in more recent years the total number of mpox cases and the number of provinces reporting mpox has been expanding, to 22 provinces as of November 2023.
