Mpox outbreaks in Africa reflect a mixed picture, with cases on a downward trend in some countries that have been major hot spots. But cases are rising in others, including some that are newly affected, officials from Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said today at a weekly briefing.
Earlier this week, the World Health Organization (WHO) mpox emergency committee said the outbreak developments warrant keeping a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) under the International Health Regulations in place.
Ngashi Ngongo, MD, PhD, MPH, leader of Africa CDC's mpox incident management team, today said Africa CDC’s mpox emergency committee has also recommended extending the group’s public health emergency of continental security.
Complex dynamics and vaccine shortages
Ngongo said cases are declining in countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda, but that testing coverage in the DRC remains low and data should be interpreted with caution. In a promising development, Ngongo said no new cases were reported last week from Kampala, which had been one of Uganda’s hot spots.
Meanwhile, more recently affected Sierra Leone is battling exponential spread from the global clade 2 virus strain, and with test positivity at 52%, confirmations there likely represent the tip of the iceberg. Cases in Sierra Leone made up 63% of all confirmed cases in the African region last week.
Health officials are still struggling with a shortage of vaccines, especially Uganda and Sierra Leone, and Ngongo said health officials are anticipating a shipment of 97,600 more doses of vaccine funded by Gavi and UNICEF, which are expected to arrive in mid June. He added that African health officials are also juggling vaccine doses, portioning those with shorter shelf lives from donor countries to African countries that have immunization programs already in place to absorb them.
Another major challenge is contact tracing in countries such as Sierra Leone where the mpox situation is escalating. He added that the identification of contacts is crucial for the ring vaccination strategy.
Rises in Ghana, Liberia, and Malawi
The arrival of mpox in West African countries is a recent development, and though the surge in Sierra Leone has received much of the attention, Ngongo said cases are also rising in two other countries in the region: Ghana and Liberia.
Ghana reported 144 new cases last week, with clade 2b circulating and males making up 60% of cases and children 31% of infections. Though most are from Western, Western North, and Greater Accra regions, for the first time cases have been detected in three more regions, which include Eastern, Central, and Northeast.
Liberia’s cases have trended upward over the past few weeks, and the country is seeing circulation of both clade 2a and 2b.
In southern Africa, Malawi reported an uptick last week, with most cases still reported from Lilongwe.
