The Republic of the Congo has officially announced a mpox epidemic following the confirmation of 19 cases spanning across five departments, media reported, citing the country's Minister of Health, Gilbert Mokoki.
Mokoki reportedly said that no fatalities have been reported thus far. He urged the public to take preventive measures such as refraining from close contact with suspected cases, avoiding interaction with animals, and abstaining from handling game meat without proper protection.
Last week, British media reported that Canadian scientists had discovered a strain of mpox with pandemic potential in the east of the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo.
In 2023, DR Congo faced an outbreak of mpox with over 13,000 suspected cases and 600 deaths.
Last November, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that the first case of sexual transmission of mpox had been confirmed in the DRC and warned that this could complicate the fight against the disease.
In 2022, mpox caused a global epidemic that spread to more than 100 countries, primarily affecting homosexual and bisexual men. Waves of infections appeared in countries that had never experienced the virus, such as the US, the UK, Sweden, and Belgium, with the US, Brazil, Spain, France, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and the UK reporting the most cases during the global outbreak.
The mpox virus used to be called monkeypox but was renamed last year because the old name was deemed "racist and stigmatizing" by the WHO. The virus got its name after it was discovered in a colony of laboratory monkeys in 1958.