WHO issues new alert over monkeypox, with the UN body’s director-general set to convene his expert committee to decide whether the current situation is once again an international public health emergency.
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Monkeypox cases are increasing in Africa, particularly around a new, more deadly and more transmissible strain of the virus that is spreading in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is worrying the WHO. At the end of July 2024, the country’s health ministry recorded more than 11,000 cases of the disease over the last 11 months, including 450 that resulted in the death of the patient, particularly among the youngest.
This sharp increase in cases started from an outbreak detected among sex workers in September 2023 in the east of the country. In recent weeks, cases have also been reported in Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda this weekend, but also further west in Côte d’Ivoire.
Since the discovery of this virus in humans in 1970 in the DRC, there have been regular episodes, such as in 2017 in Nigeria. These episodes are generally due to contact with infected animals, or to human-to-human transmission, particularly within homosexual communities, with the disease then circulating through physical contact. But this time, many cases of transmission without sexual contact have been recorded, between mothers and children, between children in schools.
This new strain of the virus causes much larger rashes all over the body. Hence the concern of the researchers who also point out that the first outbreaks developed near the large city of Goma which has an international airport, which is always a risk factor for the spread of diseases.
Are there any treatments?
Yes, two specific vaccines are recommended, but few doses are available in infected countries, and the head of the WHO is calling for more funding and international support to deal with the current outbreak. However, we do not yet know how effective these treatments are against this new viral strain. For patients, it is obviously a question of implementing strict isolation measures to avoid contamination during the recovery period, which can take 3 weeks with various symptoms such as these rashes, which are often painful, fever, muscle fatigue or headaches.
In France, there was an epidemic episode in 2022. And since then?
A few sporadic cases are still reported, for example in Réunion at the end of June 2024, but there is no longer a general alert as there was two years ago, when nearly 5,000 cases were recorded. 95% of them concerned men who have sex with men. This epidemic outbreak had actually affected around a hundred countries, for nearly 100,000 cases recorded in total by the WHO between 2022 and the end of 2023.