Suara.com – Not yet over the corona virus pandemic, now the Democratic Republic Congo (DRC) is hit by an outbreak monkey pox. So far the disease has killed 10 people and infected 141 others.
“From the first week of surveillance to the next 33 weeks, we have confirmed 141 cases, with 10 deaths,” said Dr. Aime Alengo, health official in Sakuru Province, quoted from Antara.
The majority of people who get this disease are children under 5 years of age. Congo itself is one of the few countries in Africa that still has cases of this disease.
In its Health Emergencies Bulletin Tuesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) Africa Region said: “One of the major challenges in the current emergency involves obtaining the funds needed to respond to all the outbreaks that are occurring in the country.”
Monkey pox virus is a genus orthopoxvirus that causes a disease with symptoms similar, but not so severe, to smallpox. Although smallpox was successfully eradicated in 1980, monkey pox continues to occur in a number of countries in Central and West Africa.
The monkey pox virus is mostly transmitted to humans from wild animals such as rodents and primates, but human-to-human transmission is also possible, according to the WHO.
As is known, the Central African country is also battling measles and the Covid-19 outbreak.
Week 32 (9 August 2020), 418 cases of measles, including seven deaths were reported in the country.
The provinces that report the most cases include Sankuru and South Ubangi.
The high mortality ratio is in Maniema and Sankuru. Since 2019 a total of 380,766 cases of measles and 7,018 deaths have been reported in the country, according to the WHO’s Africa branch.
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