The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has never done anything like this before. The agency is poised to declare a “public health emergency of continental security” as early as next week. Since the beginning of last year, mpox cases have been surging in the Democratic Republic of Congo , with children making up the majority of the 14,000 reported cases and 511 deaths so far in 2024.
Those numbers roughly match the number of cases reported in all of last year in the country. Why Africa is so worried In the last couple weeks, there’s been a new and alarming development. Mpox has been detected in countries that have never previously identified cases.
About 50 confirmed cases and more suspected cases have been reported in Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, according to World Health Organization officials. It is with past health emergencies in mind that Africa CDC is trying to move quickly and garner international support. “Everything we are doing today [is because] we were abandoned during COVID time and, today, we don't want to be again abandoned.
We don't want to be dependent. We are taking appropriate action,” says Dr. Jean Kaseya , director general of Africa CDC, noting that declaring a public health emergency is a new power given to the agency in 2023 by the African Union.
Kaseya says that it’s particularly concerning that about 70% of cases in the DRC are in children under 18. “This one is a major alarm for the world,” he says. “We are losin.