Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: Mpox continues to be a global health risk, with 47 countries reporting a total of 3,924 confirmed cases, including 30 deaths in July, according to a report by the World Health Organization (WHO) on August 29. The situation report, for the multi-country outbreak of mpox in July, showed that all clades of monkeypox virus (MPXV) continue to circulate in several countries.
“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 report said. In July, Senegal reported Mpox for the first time. Efforts to identify the clade are underway. Türkiye also reported cases of mpox due to clade Ib MPXV for the first time, and the Democratic Republic of Congo has reported its first cases of mpox due to clade IIb MPXV.
Further, the South-East Asian and Western Pacific regions reported an increase in cases in July, while the African Region, European Region, and the Region of the Americas reported a decrease. The Eastern Mediterranean Region did not report any mpox cases in July, the WHO said.
“Twenty-one countries in Africa have reported ongoing mpox transmission in the past six weeks. Clade IIb MPXV continues to be reported in West Africa, while Central African countries report both clade Ia and clade Ib MPXV, and East African countries report clade Ib MPXV,” the report said.
