Health officials in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) launched an mpox vaccination campaign in Kinshasa, one of the country’s hot spots, just 10 days ago, and health workers have already immunized more than 300,000 people, officials from Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said today at a briefing.
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Ngashi Ngongo, MD, PhD, MPH, who leads Africa CDC's mpox incident management team, said, “It’s a good testimony of the high acceptance.” He added that the DRC’s health ministry has two strategies in Kinshasa, one targeting entire populations in hot spots, and one targeting contacts of confirmed cases in other locations. The campaign includes children as young as 1-year old, and the vaccination rate has already reached 51.6% of the initial target.
More transmissible clade 1b variant detected in Kinshasa
In a worrying development, Ngongo said the recently identified clade 1a virus that has the APOBEC3 mutation, linked to more transmissibility, has been reported from Kinshasa.
Last week, Africa CDC officials described the emergence of the new clade 1a variant. The APOBEC3 mutation had been found in the newer clade 1b virus, a change thought to contribute to its heightened transmissibility. The older clade 1a virus is thought to be more deadly and more able to cause severe disease, and officials said a more transmissible form of clade 1a raises significant public health concerns.
Overall cases in the region have gradually trended downward over the last 5 weeks, but officials have said the trend should be interpreted with caution, due to decreased and slowed testing in the eastern part of the DRC where violence is flaring, slowing testing and impacting the medical care of mpox patients.
African countries have reported 24,272 cases this year from 15 nations, and 260 people have died from their infections. Ngongo said Angola reported its first two confirmed cases from two different provinces after 8 weeks with no cases.
Ngongo said the violence in the mpox hot spot forced 605 mpox patients to flee health centers, and so far 150 people with severe infections have returned to continue their care. More than 2 million people have been displaced internally or across borders due to the violence in the eastern part of the country.
In a positive development, scaled up infection prevention and control activities consisting of training and supply procurement in the DRC has seen a 50% reduction in mpox infections in health workers, he said. In October 2023, 104 health worker infections were reported, which dropped to 52 in January 2025.
