The alarm bells sounds in East Africa over a Monkeypox (mpox) outbreak

The World Health Organization WHO, has identified an mpox outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi. This has prompted the governments in the region to educate their population how to protect themselves and stop the spread of mpox (monkeypox), an infectious illness caused by the mpox virus.

To this effect, the EAC released a statement in its headquarters in Arusha, Tanzania, as reported by The East African.

According to the statement, Burundi reported three cases of mpox in the country’s western area, which were confirmed by national laboratories and the WHO. According to the WHO, more than 21,000 cases of mpox have been documented in the DRC since 2022, with over 1000 deaths.

Burundi borders the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, and Tanzania, whereas the DRC borders five EAC member states: Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, and South Sudan.

Andrea Aguer Ariik Malueth, the EAC deputy secretary-general in charge of infrastructural, productive, social, and political sectors, emphasized the necessity of taking preventative steps to mitigate the spread of the virus.

“EAC member states must provide the necessary information on the disease and take preventive measures,” he stated.

According to the World Health Organization; “Mpox (monkeypox) is an infectious disease caused by the monkeypox virus. It can cause a painful rash, enlarged lymph nodes and fever. Most people fully recover, but some get very sick.

Anyone can get mpox. It spreads from contact with infected: persons, through touch, kissing, or sex animals, when hunting, skinning, or cooking them materials, such as contaminated sheets, clothes or needles pregnant persons, who may pass the virus on to their unborn baby.”

According to John Claude Udahemuka, a lecturer at the University of Rwanda, The new virus which has caused blindness and miscarriages is “undoubtedly the most dangerous of all the known strains of mpox.”

An earlier, milder variant of mpox, classified as clade IIb, spread globally in 2022, affecting roughly 32,000 people across the United States and causing the death of 58 of them. It caused the World Health Organization to declare a public health emergency, which ended last year.

The new virus originally appeared in a remote part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in September and has since moved to places along Rwanda’s border with Burundi and Uganda.