Congo, W.H.O declares MPOX a global public health emergency
*New variant is more deadly and transmissible
*Authorities expect first doses to start arriving next week
*Authorities expect first doses to start arriving next week
Transcript
00:00Monkeypox is putting several countries on alert due to its rapid spread and the emergence of a
00:05new variant. In the sector of the Democratic Republic of the Congo awaits the arrival of
00:11vaccines against the Ampox virus in a context of a sharp increase in the number of cases. Let's see.
00:22The World Health Organization declared last week that the increase in cases in Africa of the virus,
00:27formerly known as Monkeypox, is a global public health emergency. Since July,
00:33cases have been reported in Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda,
00:38and in the last week cases have also been reported in Sweden, Pakistan and the Philippines.
00:48Today, the disease affects more than 17 African countries,
00:52so we are talking about a continental emergency.
00:54Secondly, as far as our situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is concerned,
01:00we have 16,700 cases and just over 570 people have died.
01:08The novelty of this disease is that it is affecting more and more young people,
01:12and many children under the age of 15 are infected.
01:16The virus was discovered in 1958 in Denmark in research monkeys. It was first found in humans
01:22in 1970 in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But since September 2023, Africa has
01:30been facing the spread of a new variant of the virus, called Clade 1B, which is deadlier and
01:36more transmissible than previous variants, and is now spreading to the rest of the world.
01:41This is a different variant, this is Clade 1B, and this seems to be even more lethal than any of the
01:52variants of mpox that we've seen before. It's got a mortality rate of about 3-4% overall,
02:02and it's higher, perhaps around 80% of the total population.
02:07The professor noted that the incubation period is between one and two weeks,
02:21which facilitates the spread of the virus. But he estimated that if health personnel around the
02:27world are alert, it is possible to prevent the virus from spreading and causing the kind of
02:31pandemic seen with COVID-19. Officials said Monday that they expect the first
02:37doses to begin arriving in the country next week.