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| Samples of monkeypox, a disease currently spreading in Africa. (Source: Getty Images) |
On January 11, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that about 14,700 confirmed cases of monkeypox, including 66 deaths, have been reported in 20 African countries from January 2024 to January 5, 2025.
Confirmed cases represent only a small fraction of suspected cases, the WHO said, adding that a large number of suspected monkeypox cases had not been tested and “therefore never confirmed” in some African countries due to limited diagnostic capacity.
| Monkeypox (Mpox) was first discovered in laboratory monkeys in 1958. It is a rare viral disease that is usually spread through bodily fluids, respiratory droplets, and contaminated materials. Infection typically causes fever, rash, and swollen lymph nodes. |
The organization's latest report shows that the outbreak is being caused by multiple clades of the virus, including the Clade Ib variant, which is spreading mainly in the Democratic Republic of Congo and neighboring countries.
Imported travel-associated cases caused by the Clade Ib variant and secondary transmission from these cases have also been detected outside Africa. WHO reports that these imported cases are mainly adults who travelled during the incubation period or were early symptomatic, with diagnosis made upon arrival in other countries.
Previously, also according to WHO, the new variant, first detected in South Kivu, an eastern province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, is estimated to have appeared around mid-September 2023.
In mid-August 2024, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared the ongoing monkeypox outbreak on the continent a public health emergency of international concern. Shortly thereafter, the WHO also declared monkeypox a public health emergency of international concern, triggering the highest level of global alert for the disease for the second time in two years.
In a related development, Sierra Leone has reported its first confirmed case of monkeypox since the world's highest alert level for the potentially deadly viral disease was raised last year.
“The patient is a 27-year-old man from a rural area of the Western Region,” near the capital, the country’s public health agency said in a social media post.
Sierra Leone was one of the countries worst affected by Ebola, which ravaged West Africa a decade ago, killing about 4,000 people, including nearly 7% of health workers, between 2014 and 2016.
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