The detection of a new, fast-spreading strain of the virus in a remote mining town in eastern Congo led the World Health Organization to declare mpox a global public health emergency in August. Since then, its spread has only accelerated.
The virus is taking hold in crowded camps home to millions of displaced Congolese, who live crammed into rough shelters with limited access to water. And it has reached Congo’s cities, including its enormous, congested capital.
Belated efforts to control mpox in Kinshasa — by isolating patients and vaccinating their contacts — have been halting and haphazard, far outpaced by the speed of the virus’s spread and change.
The world faced many public health challenges this year, including dangerous heat waves and outbreaks of the infectious diseases dengue and mpox. In the United States, after years of increases, there are early but promising signs of a downward trend in drug overdose deaths.
Africa saw a notable jump in mpox cases last week, with a continuing rise in novel clade 1b detections and shifts in transmission status in affected countries, the head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said Thursday at a weekly briefing.
...Donated vaccine doses are available to Burundi for free but “vaccine hesitancy” might be playing a part in the government’s reluctance to vaccinate people, according to Dr Ngashi Ngongo, mpox lead for the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. ...
California's health department confirmed the case through lab testing. The patient contracted it after traveling from East Africa, where there has been an outbreak of the clade I strain. The person was treated in San Mateo County and then released. The person is at home recovering, the CDC said Saturday.
