2024-08-23 17:47:09
Katako Reference Medical Center in Maniema Province, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, November 2023.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is the epicenter of the measles outbreak (formerly known as “monkeypox” or “monkeypox”), and the country’s response must adapt to the increase in cases.
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On Monday, August 19, Congo’s Ministry of Health met with the African Union’s public health agency, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to fine-tune its plans to combat MPOX, less than a week after the pan-African agency announced its highest alert level for the continent. The organization announced a case of a new offshoot of MPOX in Sweden on August 14, then expanded it internationally and then to Thailand.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, 17,342 suspected cases and 3,167 National Institute of Public Health laboratory-confirmed cases of MPOX were reported on Friday, according to the latest Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report, as well as 582 deaths. “This is more than all cases in all of 2023”warns Dr. Louis Albert Massing, Territorial Medical Coordinator of Doctors Without Borders (MSF). The French NGO is a key partner of Congolese health authorities, who have made it clear that at least some cases have been announced in 26 provinces of the country.
Children are the first victims
Announced on Monday, Kinshasa guarantees that it can count on the delivery of its first vaccine donations starting the week of August 26 Health Minister Samuel Roger Kamba recalled that the question now is“Mainland Emergency”. If the United States has pledged to provide up to 75,000 doses, the EU 215,000 doses and France 100,000 doses, Japan is currently the most generous, announcing the withdrawal of 3.5 million doses from its stocks.
Given the changing scale of the epidemic and the high cost of vaccines in countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (€100 per dose), international solidarity is what the country really needs. In fact, Kinshasa already plans to deploy a vaccination program in the east from October, targeting a population of 70,000 to 100,000 people. However, given the rapidly deteriorating situation, 10 million doses must be collected by 2025.
Clade 1b, which is more transmissible than the clade that raged in the Democratic Republic of Congo until September 2023 (where mpox has been endemic since the 1970s), has spread to its neighboring countries, with 171 cases reported in Burundi No deaths have been reported, but the worst cases have increased this week – in Uganda, Rwanda and the Central African Republic. A little further, in Gabon and Kenya. Like Kampala, Nairobi on Thursday announced increased health surveillance at its air and land borders. Health authorities confirmed the first case of the new branch 1b in Gabon on Thursday, noting that it was a young man who had returned from travel to Uganda.
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