NPR – “It’s just a matter of time, if nothing is done, that the transmission crosses the border in the African region and, again, globally,” says Dr. Jean Nachega, an epidemiologist at the University of Pittsburgh.
Nachega is one of a number of public health experts expressing alarm over a major outbreak of mpox – formerly called monkeypox – in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
They say the current situation represents a triple threat.
First, the DRC is seeing record numbers. About 400 suspect cases are reported each week – the majority in children.
Second, the strain of the virus that’s circulating is especially deadly, with up to 1 in every 10 people who get the virus dying.
“Practices conferring elevated risk for other sexually transmitted infections are frequently reported among cases of monkeypox; such practices have included attending sex-on-site venues, group sex, multiple recent sex partners, and condomless receptive anal intercourse.” – National Institutes of Health
And third, the virus is behaving differently. Scientists say it is not only surfacing in new areas and new populations (including sex workers), but it’s also spreading in new ways – including sexually – and evading diagnostic tests.
Together these issues have made it more urgent – and also more complicated – for the global health community to respond, say mpox specialists.
“For measles, we know what to do. For cholera, we know what to do. For polio, we know what to do. These are things that have been around for a long time.
For mpox, a lot of the elements are new,” says Dr. Rosamund Lewis, the World Health Organization’s technical lead and emergency manager for mpox. “And we don’t yet have all the countermeasures in place that we need in place.”
A dramatic spike in cases
Last year, the DRC recorded more than 14,500 suspected cases of mpox, and more than 650 deaths. Those figures dwarf previous years – and the numbers continue to rise. In the first two months of this year, there have been more than 3,500 suspected mpox cases and more than 250 deaths.
“Monkeypox outbreak predominantly affecting men who have sex with men.” – Eurosurveillance is an open-access medical journal covering epidemiology, surveillance, prevention, and control of communicable diseases
At this point, the majority of the cases follow a pattern that has become well-established over the past few decades: The outbreaks happen in remote villages in densely forested areas of the north and central DRC …
