World health authorities are increasingly alarmed by the latest mpox outbreak, driven by a more lethal and infectious variant than the strain behind the 2022 outbreak – with this new version predominantly affecting children.
This new strain has already caused a surge in cases across the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and is spreading to neighbouring countries, prompting the World Health Organization to declare a public health emergency (PHEIC).
Thursday health officials confirmed the first infection detected outside of Africa.
The PHEIC declaration aims to raise awareness and secure funding to contain and treat the disease.
Mpox, a virus formerly called monkeypox, infects humans and animals, and is similar to smallpox. It causes fevers, rashes and puss-filled lesions all over the body.
In severe cases, mpox provokes sepsis – a life-threatening response to infection that requires immediate medical attention.
Deadlier variant
Public health authorities are worried about mpox because of the way it spreads through direct contact with an infected person, or with contaminated materials or animals.
Someone can transmit the disease one to four days before symptoms appear.
The 2022 outbreak was triggered by clade II, one of two types of mpox, which is milder and less transmissible than clade Ib, which is behind the most recent outbreak and can kill up to ten percent of people infected.
Most cases in the 2022 outbreak were in gay or bisexual men, and containment efforts focused on changing the behavior of men having sex with men after it was established that the virus was spread through sexual contact.
The most recent outbreak has been affecting predominantly children.
The WHO has reported that 70 percent of DRC’s cases in children under the age of 15 who contracted the disease through contact with infected family members or at school.
DRC on brink
The charity Save the Children is reporting that newborn babies are getting infected in overcrowded hospitals in the DRC, and doctors have reported high rates of miscarriage among pregnant women.
In calling the outbreak a PHEIC, the WHO is opening up funding and research into the clade Ib variant to better understand how it is transmitted and how to contain it.
Authorities are concerned about the spread of the disease in areas around Goma, in the northeast of the DRC, which has reported the vast majority of cases, and which is already facing a humanitarian crisis, with millions of people displaced and moving around from camp to camp.
Goma’s international airport has allowed the virus to spread abroad.
The WHO has also alerted to the fragile state of the DRC’s healthcare system, which had been strained by past outbreaks of Ebola and Covid-19, and has been struggling to keep up with the surge in mpox cases.
Vaccines
Vaccines are an important part of controlling outbreaks, and two vaccines have been recommended for use against mpox.
Vaccines were a large part of the containment of the 2022 outbreak in the West, but barely any vaccines were available in Africa.
Last week the WHO asked vaccine manufacturers to submit requests for emergency approvals in order to ramp up vaccine production and distribution.
On Wednesday the African CDC signed an agreement with the European Commission’s health emergency authority and Bavarian Nordic, the manufacturer of Jynneos, a vaccine used against mpox, for 215,000 doses.
This is much less than the 10 million doses the needed in Africa, according to Africa CDC director-general Jean Kaseya, who this week said there was a plan to secure more by the end of the year.
“We will leave no Africans behind,” he said.
(with newswires)
