Africa CDC likely to declare Mpox public health emergency next week
Africa's public health agency is
set to declare a mpox emergency as early as next week, saying the viral
infection's rate of spread is alarming, as a new variant moves across the Democratic Republic of Congo's borders.
Mpox is transmitted through close
contact and causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions. Most cases are
mild but it can kill.
The new variant, known as Clade
Ib and circulating mostly in Congo, appears to spread more easily through
routine close contact, as seems to be the case among children.
The Africa Centres for Disease
Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) Director General, Jean Kaseya, said on
Thursday that reported cases in Africa had risen by 79% from 2022-2023 and by
160% from 2023-24.
"This is one of the aspects
that is alarming us," he said.
Kaseya added he would have calls
with the heads of the African Union (AU) and the African Union Commission on
Tuesday to "get their blessing" and guidance to declare a public
health emergency - a new power for the continental body. He said that most
likely he would make the declaration next week.
Doing so would enable the Africa
CDC to better coordinate cross-border responses and would obligate member
countries to notify new cases to the continental body, he said.
It would also enable mobilisation
of domestic and international resources and accelerate vaccine research and
development, Kaseya said, adding he had been in talks with executives of the German
drugmaker BioNTech about raising vaccine output after the likely declaration
next week.
The World Health Organization
(WHO) said Africa is experiencing an unprecedented rise in cases this year.
Congo has seen over 13,000
suspected mpox cases including 503 deaths so far this year, the WHO's
spokesperson in Congo told Reuters, taking the total number of cases there
since the start of 2023 to about 27,000, with more than 1,000 deaths.
To the east of Congo, Rwanda,
Uganda and Kenya, which were previously unaffected by mpox, have all reported
cases of the new variant since mid-July, a WHO statement said.
"Further analysis is
required to better understand the patterns of transmission to refine the
response to the outbreak," the U.N. agency said.
The U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a second health alert on Wednesday to
notify clinicians and health departments about the deadly new strain.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom
Ghebreyesus has promised to convene an emergency committee to discuss whether
the outbreak in Congo represents a public health emergency of international
concern.
On Monday, Africa CDC said it had
been granted $10.4 million, in emergency funding from the AU for
its mpox response.
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