The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have issued a health advisory on the spread of a new strain of monkeypox that recently originated from the DRC or bordering countries.
In an adversary issued on Wednesday, the US CDC noted that medical personnel should reflect a higher suspicion rate for individuals recently returned from the Democratic Republic of Congo or the neighbouring country where the new strain is dominant.
The new strain has been discovered in four different African countries. It has necessitated the need to raise awareness of the issue of warnings to health workers who work in several countries around the globe.
Mpox, which has been renamed mpox in the Democratic Republic of Cong, has since infected 14,00 persons and caused 511 deaths; recent data published by the World Health Organization show that the disease has spread to different countries in Africa, including Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda.
In a statement by WHO on Wednesday, it was stated that they plan to convene an emergency committee soon to determine whether the outbreak is a public health emergency of international concern.
Over the years, the disease has continued to spread in different countries in West Africa and Central Africa, but it also began spreading in Europe and North America in 2022, which is the major shift of the disease from Africa to the Western world.
Mpox is spread by two genetic clades, I and II. This is a broad group of viruses that changes over time and is a genetic and clinically distinct group.
The spread in DRC in the past years has been caused by Clade Ib. This Clade causes more severe disease and is responsible for the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. A medical examination has revealed that the Clade in DRC is deadlier, but no medical information has suggested that the Clade transmits faster. This is according to the recent information provided by Dr Rosamund Lewis, the WHO technical lead for the global mpox response.
The CDC also revealed that Clade II was responsible for the 2022 outbreak.
According to the WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at a news conference on Wednesday, from January 2023 till now, the DRC has revealed that Clade pox has been behind the largest spread of the disease in the country. According to the figures, the country has recorded over 22,000, with over 1,200 deaths. In the released figures, the number of infections recorded in the first six months of this year has matched the whole number of infections recorded in the entire 2023
Lewis said the risk of further spread in the region is moderate for the general population and high in the DRC.
For now, the WHO has not recommended travel restrictions for affected countries. It noted that the level or risk is quite low, moderate, high, or very high.
The CDC advised citizens to get vaccinated, especially for individuals who are at high risk or are recently exposed to the disease. The CDC noted that no cases of the clade I pox have been reported outside central and eastern Africa, and the CDC classifies the risk that it will be brought into the US as “very low.”
The emergency use and listing of both approved pox vaccines have been approved by the WHO. They noted they intend to make the Vaccine available for low-income countries that have not successfully granted the use of the vaccine in the country. Nigeria and the DRC are the two African countries that have approved pox vaccines for emergency use.
The statement also advised those who have recently travelled to the DRC in the past 21 days and are developing unexplainable symptoms to look for the pox symptoms, seek medical advice immediately, and avoid contact with residents and loved ones to stem the spread.
