Latest news with #Ngongo
The Star
6 days ago
- Health
- The Star
Africa CDC urges aggressive action to curb mpox outbreak in southern Ethiopia
ADDIS ABABA, May 30 (Xinhua) -- The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has called for aggressive efforts to control mpox in southern Ethiopia to avert possible cross-border spread. The East African country reported its first mpox case on May 25 when a 21-day-old infant tested positive in Moyale near the Kenyan border. On Friday, the Ethiopian Ministry of Health announced that the number of cases has now reached six as three new cases were confirmed. During an online media briefing on Thursday evening, Ngashi Ngongo, chief of staff and head of the Executive Office at Africa CDC, expressed concern due to Moyale town's close proximity to neighboring Somalia. "The proximity to Somalia, and knowing all the challenges in Somalia, makes it that we really need to be very bold and aggressive to control this outbreak from the source so that it does not expand from the region," he said. Meanwhile, Ngongo said that the African continent has reported 139,233 mpox cases since the start of last year. Of these, 34,824 were confirmed and about 1,788 related deaths were recorded. Mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, was first detected in laboratory monkeys in 1958. It is a rare viral disease transmitted through body fluids, respiratory droplets and contaminated materials. The infection often causes fever, rash and swollen lymph nodes.
United News of India
10-05-2025
- Health
- United News of India
Mpox death toll in Africa surpasses 1,750 since 2024: Africa CDC
Addis Ababa, May 10 (UNI) The death toll from Africa's ongoing mpox outbreak has surpassed 1,750, as the number of cases reported since the beginning of 2024 approaches 130,000, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC). During an online media briefing on Thursday evening, Ngashi Ngongo, chief of staff and head of the Executive Office at the Africa CDC, said that 24 mpox-affected African countries have reported 129,711 mpox cases since the start of last year. Of these, 29,609 were confirmed and about 1,751 related deaths were recorded. Data from the African Union (AU)'s specialized healthcare agency showed that last week alone, the continent reported 3,553 new cases, including 758 confirmed ones and 12 new related deaths. Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Uganda contributed to 93.3 percent of all confirmed cases reported during the past week. The Africa CDC further warned over the continued surge in mpox cases, as the total number of cases reported so far this year constitutes about two thirds of last year's total. The continent has recorded 52,082 mpox cases since the beginning of this year, it noted. Meanwhile, the Africa CDC has raised the alarm regarding the increasing trend of public health emergencies occurring throughout the continent. "In 2024, we had, in total, 117 moderate and high risk public health events. This year, we are already at 120. We have had 34 high risk, and 86 moderate risk events this year. This shows that the situation is not reducing," Ngongo said, adding that the top disease outbreaks reported by AU members so far in 2025 include mpox, cholera, dengue, and Lassa fever. Mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, was first detected in laboratory monkeys in 1958. It is a rare viral disease typically transmitted through body fluids, respiratory droplets, and contaminated materials. The infection often causes fever, rash, and swollen lymph nodes. In August last year, the Africa CDC declared the mpox outbreak a public health emergency of continental security. Shortly afterward, the World Health Organization designated the viral disease as a public health emergency of international concern. UNI XINHUA GNK
Time of India
09-05-2025
- Health
- Time of India
Sierra Leone's mpox cases fuel African outbreak, health body says
Dakar: Sierra Leone accounted for half of Africa's confirmed mpox cases this week, the continent's main health body said on Thursday, adding that the West African country was fuelling the outbreak. Mpox is a viral infection that spreads through close contact and typically causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions. It is usually mild, but can be lethal. It remains a public health emergency due to the continuing rise in the number of cases and the geographic spread of the outbreak, according to the WHO, which first declared the emergency in August last year. The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention ( Africa CDC ) said Sierra Leone reported 384 confirmed cases in a week, representing 50.7 per cent of all the continent's cases. Sierra Leone, which declared mpox a public health emergency in January, has seen a 63% jump in confirmed cases in just one week, Africa CDC official Ngashi Ngongo said in an online briefing. Ngongo said that funding was the main issue, but added that contact tracing and laboratory capacity also needed to be improved. "They have a bed capacity in mpox treatment centres of only 60 beds, but we are talking about 800 active cases," Ngongo said, adding that most infected people had to stay at home. Last August, officials said the budget to fight mpox was severely underfunded, and in February they warned funding cuts proposed by the United States earlier this year would threaten efforts to contain disease outbreaks. Mpox cases in high-burden countries Uganda and Burundi are on a steady decline, while cases in Democratic Republic of Congo are showing signs of flattening, said Ngongo.
Reuters
06-03-2025
- Health
- Reuters
New Ebola cluster detected in Uganda, Africa CDC says
DAKAR, March 6 (Reuters) - A new cluster of Ebola cases has emerged in Uganda, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said on Thursday, adding that efforts were being made to intensify monitoring and contact-tracing measures. Uganda declared an outbreak of the highly infectious and often fatal haemorrhagic disease in January in the capital Kampala after the death of a male nurse at the East African country's sole national referral hospital for Ebola cases. A second Ebola patient who died was a four-year-old child, the World Health Organization said on Saturday, citing the country's health ministry. Africa CDC official Ngashi Ngongo told reporters that since the last briefing on Thursday a new cluster with three confirmed and two probable cases had been detected. Two new districts reported Ebola cases, Ngongo said, adding that initially the outbreak affected three other districts. Overall, Uganda has recorded 14 cases and two deaths since the start of the outbreak, according to Africa CDC. "Ebola in Uganda is a very important challenge, especially the resurgence of these cases. However, I think everything is being done in the country to intensify the monitoring," Ngongo said told the briefing. Ebola symptoms include fever, headache and muscle pains. The virus is transmitted through contact with infected bodily fluids and tissue. Uganda last suffered an outbreak in late 2022 which killed 55 of the 143 people infected. That outbreak was declared over in 2023. An outbreak of Marburg, a cousin of Ebola, was declared in neighbouring Tanzania in January. Uganda also borders Rwanda, which emerged from a Marburg outbreak in December, and Democratic Republic of Congo, where outbreaks of Ebola are common. Keep up with the latest medical breakthroughs and healthcare trends with the Reuters Health Rounds newsletter. Sign up here.
Telegraph
03-03-2025
- Health
- Telegraph
New mutant mpox strain discovered in the DRC
A new variant of mpox that may be better adapted to spread between people has been identified in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The new strain is a mutation of Clade 1a mpox – an older variant that has been known to cause more severe disease than Clade 2, which caused a global outbreak in 2022, or Clade 1b, which has been spreading rapidly in Africa since 2023. Dr Ngashi Ngongo, who heads the mpox incident management team at the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), said the new strain raises significant public health concerns. This is because it carries a mutation known as APOBEC3, which indicates that it may be more transmissible, he explained. The same mutation had already been seen in Clade 1b mpox and has helped it spread beyond the DRC to several neighbouring countries as well as Europe and Asia. 'Very important information from the DRC – we have seen a new variant of Clade 1a with APOBEC3 that has been detected, and unlike the old 1a variant, this one has got high potential for higher transmissibility,' Dr Ngongo told a briefing. Clade 1a had previously been linked to spillovers from animals, with some limited human-to-human transmission in endemic areas in central Africa. It has a fatality rate ranging from 1.4 per cent to over 10 per cent, compared with between 0.1 per cent and 3.6 per cent for Clade 2. However, Dr Lorenzo Subissi, a virologist with the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, cautioned that so far such high fatality rates had not been observed. 'While this variant may spread outside of DRC, the mortality rate seen in Kinshasa, where the new Clade 1a variant co-circulates with Clade 1b, remains less than one per cent, so much lower than what was historically thought to be clade Ia mortality,' he told The Telegraph. 'Mortality will largely depend on underlying conditions of the affected population such as malnutrition.' The discovery of the new mutant strain came as the World Health Organization extended its declaration of a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) over the mpox epidemic. The unanimous decision from the WHO emergency committee was 'based on the continuing rise in numbers and geographic spread, the violence in the eastern DRC, which hampers the response, as well as a lack of funding to implement the response plan,' the WHO said in a statement. The outbreaks in Africa mainly involve Clade 1a and 1b strains of the virus, with limited transmission of clade 2. Dr Ngongo said several countries in Africa are continuing to report rising mpox cases, while spiralling armed conflict in the DRC is increasing the risk of spread. Fourteen out of 22 African countries affected by the epidemic are still in the active outbreak stage, he said. Among them is South Africa, which reported three new cases after going more than 90 days without reporting any. In Uganda, surging mpox cases – the country reported 278 last week – have begun to overwhelm medical facilities, prompting the country's ministry of health to begin at-home treatment of patients with less severe disease. Dr Ngongo said one treatment facility in the central Ugandan city of Entebbe was currently dealing with over 100 patients despite only having 80 beds. In the DRC, conflict is fuelling the outbreak and complicating efforts to monitor it. More than 500 mpox patients have been forced to flee health facilities in Goma and Bukavu, two cities in the east of the country that were recently plunged into chaos when they were seized by the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels, according to local media reports. 'We were looted. We lost equipment. It was a disaster,' said Dr Samuel Muhindo, who runs a clinic in Goma. 'Now we are afraid of an outbreak of the epidemic in the areas where the displaced people returned to,' he told the BBC. The spread of the fighting – and the freeze on USAID money that had been used to transport tests to laboratories – mean that only 35 per cent of suspected mpox cases are now being tested in the DRC. While, overall, cases in Africa have declined in recent weeks, Dr Ngongo said this was probably the result of reporting delays and the decline in testing coverage in the DRC. Against this backdrop of significant uncertainty around the outbreak, the DRC finally began its first large-scale mpox vaccination programme last week. Over 24,800 people received jabs for mpox in the space of four days, Dr Ngongo said. A new, two-pronged strategy is intended to target both high-risk areas and the contacts of confirmed cases, according to the Africa CDC. Previous vaccination campaigns have targeted frontline health workers.
