In Goma, DR Congo finds at least 25 instances of mpox, mostly in camps for displaced people

In the eastern city of Goma, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, at least 25 instances of a hazardous new strain of mpox have been identified, primarily in camps housing individuals escaping a nearby conflict, health officials reported on Wednesday.

Since the beginning of 2023, 20,000 cases and over 1,000 deaths—mostly in children—have been reported in Congo from mpox. This year, there have been almost 11,000 instances documented, including 443 deaths.

Though none of the vaccines are now accessible in the nation outside of clinical trials, authorities have just approved their usage to combat the outbreak.

The majority of newly reported cases of mpox were found in camps housing displaced people, according to an interview with Cris Kacita, the leader of the national response team against the outbreak.

He claimed that cases were infected with a novel strain of the virus that is proliferating in the province of South Kivu. The largest city in the adjacent province of North Kivu is Goma.

Scientists and the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a warning last month over the mpox situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, citing the development of a new mpox strain in South Kivu.

Though a new strain of the clade I virus appeared last year, mpox has been endemic in the Congo for many years. It’s a viral infection that spreads by intimate contact, resulting in sores packed with pus and symptoms similar to the flu. Although it can be fatal, the majority of instances are not severe.

Clade IIb, a new, less severe form of mpox, most commonly spread through male-to-male sexual intercourse in 2022. This prompted the WHO to declare a public health emergency, which has since been lifted even though the disease is still posing a threat to public health and there are still cases.

“The national biomedical research institute in Goma has sequenced the virus and this proves that the virus has been circulating for a long time in the city of Goma” , Kacita explained.

“The risk here is the promiscuity in the camps and the speed with which the epidemic is spreading” , warned him.

In densely populated camps in and around Goma are hundreds of thousands of people who fled fighting in the rebel-infested east of the Congo.

Ever since the M23 rebel organization launched a massive offensive in 2022, more people have been displaced despite national and regional military measures that have failed to stop the militia’s march.