The World Health Organization said in its report that it has confirmed sexual transmission of the mpox virus for the first time in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Four men and one woman in the central African country tested positive for mpox after having sexual contact in March with a tourist from Belgium who likely contracted the disease in his home country, the UN health agency has revealed.
According to the organization, this case marks the "first documented sexual transmission" of mpox and the first recorded case of homosexual transmission.
"This is the first definitive proof of sexual transmission of monkeypox in Africa," said Oyewale Tomori, a Nigerian virologist who sits on several WHO advisory groups. "The idea that this kind of transmission could not be happening here has now been debunked."
In addition, in an unrelated case, another confirmed case of mpox was reported in late July in the town of Kenge, DR Congo, involving a man who had sexual contact with men.
In this regard, the UN agency noted that there are gay clubs in Kenge, some of whose members travel to other clubs inside and outside the country, particularly in Europe and Central Africa. WHO added that there are more than 50 of these clubs in Kinshasa, DR Congo's capital, a fact that connotes the risk of the virus spreading through sexual activity.
The agency noted that the number was the highest ever recorded in the country, with new cases detected in geographic areas where mpox had not previously been reported, including Kinshasa, Lualaba in the south, and South Kivu in the east.
The WHO warned that the risk of the infection spreading to other countries in Africa and around the world "appears to be significant," adding that there could be "potentially more severe consequences" than last year's global epidemic.
In 2022, mpox infection went global when it spread to more than 100 countries, prompting the WHO to declare the outbreak a global emergency, and it has caused approximately 91,000 cases to date. The United States, Brazil, Spain, France, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and the United Kingdom reported the most cases during the global outbreak.
Mpox used to be called monkeypox, but was renamed last year as the old name seemed "racist and stigmatizing," according to the WHO.
The virus was named after its discovery in a colony of laboratory monkeys in 1958. The first cases of human infection were reported in the DR Congo in 1970.