Africa’s mpox situation is being complicated by measles co-infections in children in two Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) provinces, say officials from the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), who are buoyed, however, by the increase in mpox testing rates in the region.
Ngashi Ngongo, MD, PhD, who leads Africa CDC’s mpox incident management team, said most of the co-infection cases were in children under 15 and that one of the reasons was low measles vaccination coverage.
He said researchers are still trying to understand the interaction between measles and mpox.
Signs of hope
CIDRAP reports that there were 2 729 new cases in the region last week and that another 16 people have died from their infections.
So far this year, 45 327 cases, including 1 014 deaths, have been reported.
Ngongo said Liberia, Kenya and Uganda have all reported rising cases, but noted several promising developments, however, including that five of the 18 affected countries haven't reported a confirmed case in four weeks: Cameroon, Gabon, Guinea, Rwanda and South Africa.
Testing rates and test positivity have also been on the rise, which shows improvement in sample management in the wake of increased training, although contact tracing is still a challenge.
Another positive development is high acceptance of the mpox vaccine in the DRC and Rwanda, including in congested setting in the DRC like prisons and camps of internally displaced people.
Vaccination is under way in Rwanda and in three DRC provinces.
In the DRC, the vaccine campaign in Kinshasa was expected to begin this week, while after a delay, Nigeria began vaccinating 10 days ago.
Ngongo said that so far, 5.6m doses of mpox vaccine have been confirmed, including 2.57m doses of Bavarian Nordic’s Jynneos vaccine and 3m doses of the LC-16 vaccine from Japan.
CIDRAP article – Mpox-measles co-infections reported in hard-hit DR Congo provinces (Open access)
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
DRC records 581 suspected mpox deaths
Most mpox cases can’t be tracked, says Africa CDC