In the first weeks of 2025, mpox activity in some of Africa’s mpox hot spots continued at a steady pace, though countries are at different stages of their outbreaks, a top official from Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said today at a briefing.
.jpg)
Though 21 countries have reported cases since the start of 2024, 10 are currently in the active outbreak stage, including the Central African Republic (CAR), which launched its mpox vaccine campaign on January 18. The fourth country to begin immunization, the CAR is using the first 2,300 doses of its 12,300-dose allocation.
Ngashi Ngongo, MD, PhD, head of Africa CDC's mpox incident management team, said in the first two epidemiological weeks of the year, the region reported 5,842 cases, a number that doesn’t yet include the latest numbers from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which has been the region’s top hot spot. Over the past 2 weeks, countries also reported 38 deaths.
Uganda’s situation intensifies, along with activity in urban hot spots
Ngongo said though cases continue at a stable level in Burundi and the DRC, activity appears to be on the rise in Uganda. He also raised concerns about an increase in deaths in Uganda, especially in people with underlying health conditions.
Urban cities such as Bujumbura, Burundi’s largest city and its main port, Uganda’s capital Kampala, and the DRC’s capital Kinshasa are highly affected and require focused intervention, Ngongo said.
Elsewhere, Sierra Leone, the most recently affected country, now has 12 confirmed cases from 7 districts, he said. Genetic sequencing of the country’s first two cases, reported earlier this month, have revealed the clade 2b virus, which is the global strain that has been circulating since 2022.
Africa is grappling with a complex mpox situation, which involves different clades in different countries, including the spread of the novel clade 1b virus, especially in the DRC and its neighbors.