Dozens of mpox patients are crammed into large plastic isolation tents as the east Democratic Republic of Congo struggles at the epicentre of the outbreak. Medicine shortages and overstretched hospital workers are stunting progress towards controlling what is now a global public health emergency. - REUTERS
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00:00Lying on thin mattresses on damp earth, this is an overcrowded makeshift MPOC's isolation
00:09ward in East Democratic Republic of Congo. The country is the epicenter of the global
00:16public health emergency declared by the World Health Organization last month. Overstretched
00:21hospital workers grapple with drug shortages and lack of space to accommodate the influx
00:27of patients. In Kivumu, 900 symptomatic patients, like Sifa Mwakasisi, have been taken in over
00:34the past three months.
00:35They should give us medicine and put us in good conditions, instead of just locking us
00:41in these cages as if we're not human, telling us no one should come near us.
00:47The head of the Congo's MPOC's response team acknowledged that parts of the vast country
00:52lacked medicine. He added that dispatching donations, including 115 tons of medicine
00:59from the World Bank, was a priority.
01:02Relatives who usually provide the bulk of meals in underfunded public facilities were
01:07banned from visiting the MPOC's ward to avoid contamination. Basic treatment is also a challenge.
01:13Here's Kivumu Hospital's medical director, Musole Mulamba Muva.
01:18We have many challenges. The first challenge concerns the supply of medicine, because we
01:26run out of medicine every day, because the stocks given to us by partners often run out
01:31without being able to renew. We have to wait for more medicine to arrive, and so we always
01:40experience shortages, medicine shortages. And that's a big challenge we have in
01:48managing this disease.
01:58MPOC's causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions and, while usually mild, it can kill.
02:04Children, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems are at a higher risk of complications.
02:11Vaccines are set to arrive within days to fight the new strain of the virus, while Congo's
02:16president has allowed a first $10 million disembursement to fight the outbreak.
02:22Over 19,000 suspected cases of MPOCs have been reported since the start of the year
02:27in Congo, according to the health ministry. Of those, 5,000 were confirmed and 655 were
02:34fatal.