Africa declares public health emergency over mpox outbreak

The UKHSA says the risk to the UK is low, as ITV News' Sam Holder reports

The African Union has declared a "public health emergency" over the growing outbreak of mpox (monkeypox) across the continent.

“I declare with a heavy heart but with an unyielding commitment to our people, to our African citizens, we declare mpox as public health emergency of continental security,” Jean Kaseya, head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), said during an online media briefing on Tuesday.

There have been more 511 deaths as a result of the virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo since the start of the year, and more than 14,000 cases.

It was described as a "severe epidemic" by World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus last week.

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The United States is also tracking how the virus develops in Central Africa, according to State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel, who spoke to reporters on Tuesday.

The head of the WHO said on August 1 that he would convene an expert group to determine whether the increasing spread of the mpox virus in Africa warrants being declared a global emergency.

At that point, mpox had been detected in 10 African countries since the start of the year including Congo, which has more than 96% of all cases and deaths.

A colourised transmission electron micrograph of monkeypox particles (red) found within an infected cell (blue), cultured in the laboratory. Credit: AP

Officials at the Africa CDC said nearly 70% of cases in Congo are in children younger than 15, who also accounted for 85% of deaths.

Back in 2022 the WHO declared mpox to be a global emergency after it spread to more than 70 countries, mostly affecting gay and bisexual men.

Before that outbreak, the disease had mostly been seen in sporadic epidemics in central and West Africa when people came into contacted with infected animals.

Monkeypox was renamed mpox by the WHO due to concerns about stigma.

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