more than 18,000 suspected or confirmed cases in Africa since the beginning of the year

This count was established by the African Union health agency (Africa CDC), which specifies that several variants of the virus have been identified since January 2024. In total, 18,737 suspected or confirmed cases of mpox have been identified since the beginning of the year on the continent.including 1,200 in one week, the Africa CDC said on Saturday, August 17.

More cases have been recorded since the beginning of 2024 than in all of 2023 (14,838), says the Africa CDC. The Democratic Republic of Congo, the epicenter of the epidemic, accounts for almost all of the cases recorded with 16,800 suspected or confirmed, according to the same source. More than 500 deaths have been recorded since the beginning of 2024. The 26 provinces of the country of around 100 million inhabitants have recorded cases. Burundi, which borders the DRC, has recorded 173 cases (39 confirmed, 134 suspected), up 75% in one week.

Africa is facing the spread of a new strain of the virus, detected in the DRC in September 2023 and called “Clade Ib”, more deadly and more transmissible than the previous ones. The first cases of mpox were also recorded outside Africa this week, in Sweden and Pakistan. The resurgence of mpox prompted the World Health Organization to declare a public health emergency of international concern on Wednesday, the highest alarm. The WHO had already taken such a decision in 2022 when an epidemic of mpox, carried by clade 2b, had spread across the world.