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PRETORIA | TASS | As many as 22,800 mpox cases have been registered in African countries since the beginning of the year, the AP agency reported, citing the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), the African Union’s public health agency.
As many as 622 mpox patients have died over this period. The incidence rate has jumped up by 200% over the past week, with the Democratic Republic of the Congo being the epicenter of the outbreak. Most of the patients are aged under 15.
However, morbidity and lethality data vary, since some medical services register only confirmed cases while others also count suspected mpox cases.
On August 13, the Africa CDC declared the mpox outbreak a public health emergency in Africa and on the following day, World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared mpox a global public health emergency.
Mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, is a rare viral disease which is endemic to remote regions near tropical forests of Central and Western Africa. The first case of an animal transmitting the disease to humans was recorded in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1970. According to the WHO, this virus is usually transmitted to humans by wild animals, such as rodents and primates, while its secondary spread among humans is limited. Usually the lethality coefficient during mpox outbreaks ranges from 1% to 10% with the majority of fatalities affecting younger age groups.
Common symptoms of mpox are a skin rash or mucosal lesions, which can last from two to four weeks accompanied by fever, headache, muscle aches, back pain, low energy and swollen lymph nodes.
