Yesterday the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) and the European Commission highlighted the launch of the Partnership to Accelerate Mpox Testing and Sequencing in Africa (PAMTA) to boost diagnostics and outbreak response capabilities in mpox-affected African countries, Africa CDC said in a news release.
The initiative comes as officials announce new cases across the continent and confirm that Gambia is the 25th affected African nation.
Ramping up testing, local manufacturing
PAMTA is designed to bolster resilience against current and future outbreaks in Africa. It will accelerate testing, sequencing, capacity building, and local manufacturing efforts for mpox and other priority pathogens across Africa through a €9.4 million ($10.7 million US) grant to Africa CDC and the African Society for Laboratory Medicine, managed by the European Health and Digital Executive Agency. The project officially began on June 1 and will be implemented over 3 years. It is funded under the EU4Health 2024 Work Programme.
Africa CDC Director General, Jean Kaseya, said, "This partnership reflects our commitment to working with trusted partners to build agile and self-reliant public health systems across Africa. Together with the EU and our technical partners, we are setting a new benchmark for outbreak detection and response."
The PAMTA initiative focuses on four key objectives: (1) ramping up mpox testing, with the goal of supporting more than 150,000 tests; (2) strengthening genomic sequencing capacity to track viral evolution and spread; (3) building human resource capacity in molecular diagnostics, genomics, bioinformatics and data interpretation; and (4) promoting the production and validation of locally developed testing kits within Africa.
"PAMTA marks a historic milestone as the first initiative jointly signed between the European Commission and Africa CDC," said Laurent Muschel, director of the European Commission's Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA).
This action enables a critical next step: strengthening diagnostic capacities as part of a broader medical countermeasures approach.
"Building on HERA's earlier donation of Mpox vaccines, this action enables a critical next step: strengthening diagnostic capacities as part of a broader medical countermeasures approach. It reflects our shared commitment to reinforcing epidemic preparedness across Africa—from vaccines to diagnostics, from innovation to manufacturing."
More than 2,600 new cases in Africa
Mpox cases in Africa have now reached 91,159 in 2025, Africa CDC officials said at a news conference yesterday. Of those cases, 28,386 have been confirmed, as have 667 deaths.
Officials recorded 2,603 suspected cases for the week ending July 19, up from 2,578 the week before. But confirmed cases were down 27%, however, from 755 to 553. Africa CDC reported 16 new mpox deaths, 11 of them confirmed.
Officials also officially confirmed that Gambia has become the 25th affected country in Africa. The case in Gambia was first reported July 11 and was confirmed last week, according to media reports. The case was caused by clade 2 mpox virus, and Gambia has 71 suspected cases.
Africa CDC officials said confirmed cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are down 42%. Suspected cases in the DRC, however, rose 9% in the week ending July 19. Confirmed cases dropped by 35% and suspected cases declined 43% in Uganda, which is the second hardest-hit country. Sierra Leone, with the third-highest overall case count, saw suspected cases rise 17% and confirmed cases increase 20%.
The DRC has 120,575 suspected cases in 2024 and 2025 (28,928 confirmed), Uganda has 15,590 suspected cases (7,582 confirmed), and Sierra Leone has 6,135 suspected cases (4,876 confirmed). Deaths in the three countries are now at 1,909, 48, and 42, respectively.
Risk of sustained community spread
In a situation report yesterday, the World Health Organization (WHO) said, "When mpox outbreaks are not rapidly contained and human-to-human transmission is not interrupted, they continue to pose a risk of sustained community transmission."
The WHO said that Mozambique has reported cases of mpox due to clade 1b for the first time, adding that 21 countries in Africa have reported ongoing mpox transmission in the past 6 weeks.
"Uganda continues to experience community transmission of clade Ib MPXV [mpox virus], reporting the third-highest number of laboratory-confirmed cases in the continent," the WHO said. "Cases continue to be reported primarily among young adults of both sexes and 48% of deaths were among people living with HIV."
When mpox outbreaks are not rapidly contained and human-to-human transmission is not interrupted, they continue to pose a risk of sustained community transmission.
Australia, China, and the United Kingdom have reported new mpox clade 1b cases since the last WHO situation report.
The WHO said that the Central African Republic, the DRC, Liberia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, and Uganda have begun vaccination campaigns, with most nations implementing a single-dose strategy targeting populations at high risk of exposure. It said more than 890,000 vaccine doses have been administered on the continent.
