Sierra Leone's mpox cases fuel African outbreak, says health body

Sierra Leone accounted for half of Africa's confirmed mpox cases this week, the continent's main health body said on Thursday, adding that the West African country was fuelling the outbreak.

Mpox is a viral infection that spreads through close contact and typically causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions. It is usually mild, but can be lethal.

It remains a public health emergency due to the continuing rise in the number of cases and the geographic spread of the outbreak, according to the WHO, which first declared the emergency in August last year.

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said Sierra Leone reported 384 confirmed cases in a week, representing 50.7% of all the continent's cases.

Sierra Leone, which declared mpox a public health emergency in January, has seen a 63% jump in confirmed cases in just one week, Africa CDC official Ngashi Ngongo said in an online briefing.

Ngongo said that funding was the main issue, but added that contact tracing and laboratory capacity also needed to be improved.

"They have a bed capacity in mpox treatment centres of only 60 beds, but we are talking about 800 active cases," Ngongo said, adding that most infected people had to stay at home.

Last August officials said the budget to fight mpox was severely underfunded, and in February they warned funding cuts proposed by the US earlier this year would threaten efforts to contain disease outbreaks.

Mpox cases in high-burden countries Uganda and Burundi are on a steady decline, while cases in Democratic Republic of Congo are showing signs of flattening, said Ngongo.

Reuters