Health officials warn of mpox outbreak in African countries

Cases of mpox have been climbing in multiple African countries, including among children, in a health crisis that has drawn warnings from international health groups.

The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is an agency of the African Union, could soon declare a “public health emergency of continental security,” according to NPR, and a committee of independent experts at the World Health Organization will soon determine whether the mpox outbreak amounts to a public health emergency of international concern.

The African Centers for Disease Control has issued pleas for mpox vaccine doses in an effort to acquire 10 million doses, despite having just 200,000 shots, according to Politico EU.

According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has seen more ethan 22,000 suspected mpox cases along with 1,200 deaths since Jan. 2023.

Some parts of the DRC have seen spread of mpox via infection through contact with infected wild animals, patient care with insufficient PPE, or through others in their households. Other parts of the country have seen cases associated with sexual contact among men who have sex with men as well as women who are sex workers and their contacts, according to the CDC. These cases, the CDC says, represent the first known sexually transmited cases of the Clade I strain, which is one of two strains circulating in the DRC alongside Clade II.

Clade I is associated with more severe outcomes, such as severe sickness or death.

The latest wave of mpox in Africa comes two years after an outbreak gripped the LGBTQ community in the United States and other countries. In Africa, monkeypox historically has been known to spread to people via infected wild animals in limited outbreaks that typically have not crossed borders. When cases started spreading in Europe and North America and some other areas, however, mpox was spreading among individuals with no links to animals or recent travel to Africa.

On Aug. 7, the CDC issued a Health Alert Network Health Update stating that the CDC recommends clinicians in the US maintain “a heightened index of suspicion for mpox in patients who have recently been in DRC or to any country sharing a border with DRC (ROC, Angola, Zambia, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, South Sudan, CAR) and present with signs and symptoms consistent with mpox.”  

Mpox is still spreading in the United States, though at a much smaller scale than in 2022 — and cases have been dipping in New York City after an uptick in the spring. 

The city reported 53 cases in April, 43 in May, 36 in June, and 33 in July. From July 7 to Aug. 3, there were just 26 cases.