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Surge of mpox cases recorded in Africa

At least 22 African countries have been affected by the epidemic since the beginning of 2024 with the total number of cases amounting to over 117,000 with 1,700 fatalities

NAIROBI, April 11. /TASS/. The number of mpox cases registered in Africa over the past three months has been more than half of the total reported in all of 2024, Yap Boum, deputy incident manager for mpox at the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said.

"We see that the number of cases is still increasing both in terms of suspected and confirmed cases. We have an average of 3,000 suspected cases weekly so far in 2025," said Boum at a weekly online briefing. "More critical, in the past three months, we have already had more than 50% of the total number of cases that we had in 2024," the official added.

According to him, Africa has reported 39,840 mpox cases so far this year, including 9,020 confirmed ones. In the previous week alone, Africa recorded 2,768 new cases, including 508 confirmed ones and 13 new related fatalities, Boum said.

At least 22 African countries have been affected by the epidemic since the beginning of 2024 with the total number of cases amounting to over 117,000 with 1,700 fatalities.

Uganda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) together reported 94% of the confirmed cases during the previous week, the Africa CDC said. According to the agency, the DRC has reported a total of 90,406 mpox cases since the start of last year, including 2,099 cases during the past week alone.

Mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, is a rare viral disease which is endemic to remote regions near tropical forests of Central and Western Africa. Its symptoms include fever, rash, headaches, sore throat, muscle aches, swollen lymph nodes, and back aches. It is usually transmitted through body fluids, respiratory droplets and other contaminated materials The first case of the animal-to-human transmission of this disease was recorded in the DRC in 1970. According to the World Health Organization, 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 in the younger age groups.

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