The head of the World Health Organisation believes the ongoing mpox outbreaks in Africa might be stopped in the next six months and says the agency's first shipment of vaccines should arrive in the Democratic Republic of Congo within days. or signup to continue reading To date, Africa has received just a tiny fraction of the vaccines needed to slow the spread of the virus, especially in DR Congo, which has the most cases - more than 18,000 suspected cases and 629 deaths. "With the governments' leadership and close co-operation between partners, we believe we can stop these outbreaks in the next six months," WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press briefing.
He said that while mpox - formerly known as monkeypox - infections have been rising quickly in the last few weeks, there have been relatively few deaths. Tedros also noted there were 258 cases of the newest version of mpox, with patients identified in Burundi, Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, Sweden and Thailand. Earlier this month, the WHO declared the ongoing mpox outbreaks in Africa a global emergency, hoping to spur a robust international response to the disease on a continent where cases were spreading largely unnoticed for years, including in Nigeria.
In May, scientists detected a new version of the disease in DR Congo that they think could be spreading more easily. Mpox is related to smallpox but typically causes milder symptoms including fever, headache and body aches. In severe cases, people can devel.