Global Mpox Outbreak Risk Escalates As Potent Strain Spreads In Congo

In May of this year, the World Health Organization announced the end of the global health emergency related to mpox, about a year after the disease, previously known as monkeypox, began spreading globally. WHO Chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attributed the decision to declining global case numbers. However, the ongoing monkeypox outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo poses an escalating threat, not just to the nation but to the entire world.

According to the World Health Organization, eleven of the 26 provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo are identified as endemic for mpox, but in more recent years, the total number of mpox cases and the number of provinces reporting mpox has been expanding, to 22 provinces as of November 2023.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, human-to-human transmission of mpox through close contact has been reported since the 1970s, mostly in small household or community outbreaks, presumed to be primarily due to zoonotic transmission.

Due to a lack of timely access to diagnostics, difficulties with linking cases to any contact with infectious animals, and incomplete epidemiological and contact tracing investigations over the years, the dynamics of MPXV clade I transmission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are not well understood.

More than 12,500 people have been infected, and 581 deaths are thought to have been caused by the virus in the country between January and the start of November, the WHO said. That's the highest number of cases reported since human-to-human transmission of Mpox was detected in the 1970s.