Africa’s top public health body on Thursday said it was alarmed about the rising cases of monkeypox in the UK, Spain, Portugal, Canada and the U.S.
“Several outbreaks” of monkeypox have been reported and contained during the Covid-19 pandemic while the world’s attention was elsewhere, said Africa Centre for Disease Control Deputy-Director Ahmed Ogwell, adding that expected outbreaks will be handled in the usual way.
Monkeypox is a rare disease that is caused by infection with monkeypox virus. People catch monkeypox from animals. Person-to-person transmission isn’t common as it requires close contact with bodily fluids such as saliva or pus from lesions formed due to the infection.
The virus causes fever symptoms, headache, muscle aches, backache, swollen lymph nodes, chills, exhaustion and a distinctive bumpy rash that often begins on the face, and then spreads to other parts of the body including the genitals.
According to the director, the reason that cases outside the continent are worrying is because the disease is common in tropical rainforest areas.
“We are however concerned at the multiple countries outside, especially in Europe, that are seeing these outbreaks of monkey pox. It would be very useful for knowledge to be shared regarding what the source of these outbreaks actually are,” he said.
“We are in close contact with our counterparts at the European CDC to try and understand where that did come from because when you see monkey pox in environments that are far away from a forested area then for sure as far as public health is concerned it raises a lot of questions.”
According to the World Health Organisation, most people recover from monkeypox within weeks, but the disease is fatal for up to one in 10 people.
