“I pray for all those infected, especially the population of the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is so suffering,” the sovereign pontiff declared at the end of the Angelus prayer.
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Pope Francis prayed for the first time on Sunday, August 25, for the victims of the mpox epidemic, saying that the virus constitutes “now a global health emergency.” He also urged the “governments” and the “private industries” has “share available treatments” so that “no one lacks care.”
“I pray for all those infected, especially the population of the Democratic Republic of Congo, so tried, I express my closeness to the local churches of the countries most affected by this disease”the Pope said at the end of the Angelus prayer, before the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican.
MPOX, formerly known as monkeypox, is a viral disease that spreads from animals to humans but is also transmitted between humans through physical contact. It causes fever, muscle pain and skin lesions. The resurgence of MPOX in Africa, which is hitting the Democratic Republic of Congo hard, but also Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) to trigger its highest level of alert at the international level in mid-August. It declared the epidemic in “public health emergency of international concern”, its highest alert category.