UN agencies have expressed concern about the spread of the mpox virus, previously known as monkeypox, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DR Congo) refugee camps.
On Tuesday, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) reported that around 42 suspected cases of mpox had been identified in refugee camps and transit centers in South Kivu, a region in eastern DRC that hosts nearly 2 million internally displaced people and refugees.
“For those fleeing violence, implementing many of the mpox measures is a tremendous challenge,” said Dr Allen Maina, the public health chief with the UNHCR. “Suspected cases are being reported in conflict-impacted provinces that host the majority of the DRC’s 7.3 million internally displaced people.”
With over 7 million people displaced across the DRC – one of the highest levels of displacement in the world – the risk of disease spread is significant. This includes individuals fleeing internal conflicts, natural disasters, and those arriving from neighboring countries such as Rwanda, Burundi, and South Sudan.
“They have no space to isolate when they develop symptoms of the disease,” he added.
“In these areas, the virus threatens to exacerbate an already impossible situation for a population devastated by decades of conflict, forced displacement, appalling human rights abuses and a lack of international assistance,” the UN official stated.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reported more than 18,910 cases of mpox and 615 deaths so far this year, with the majority occurring in the DR Congo. However, many of these cases are still classified as suspected, pending laboratory confirmation, according to WHO spokesperson Dr Margaret Harris.
“We are seeing outbreaks of both Clade 1a and Clade 1b,” Dr Harris added.
Last week, Russia’s human welfare watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, announced that it would provide African countries with diagnostic tests for the mpox virus.
Russian specialists also conducted training courses last week in the Republic of the Congo, focusing on the prevention and diagnosis of infectious diseases, with a particular emphasis on mpox, according to the agency’s press service.
The virus was first identified in macaque monkeys in the late 1950s. Human monkeypox received its name in the 1970s, long before the WHO released its ‘best practices in naming diseases’ guidebook in 2015. The first human case was reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (then Zaire) in 1970, where the disease remains endemic.