Fear grips east DR Congo as displaced await mpox vaccine

An ever-growing number of patients have been flocking to a Goma hospital in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where a rapidly-spreading epidemic of mpox has erupted in recent months.

Five to 20 people are walking each day into Nyiragongo General Referral Hospital in North Kivu to consult overburdened medical teams at an outdoor isolation centre, fearing they are ill with the virus.

The disease can spread from animals to humans, but also human-to-human through sexual or close physical contact.

Dr Tresor Basubi inspected the breathing and heartbeat of a calm little girl whose body was covered in skin lesions caused by the disease, which has killed 548 people so far this year.

Cases have now surfaced in all provinces of the DRC, a country of 100 million people.

"This is just the start, the child is not asthenic, she does not show severe symptoms, she can walk on her own," said Basubi as he examined the girl.

In benign cases, which make up the great majority of infections, treatments can help relieve the symptoms — including paracetamol to reduce fevers and a zinc oxide cream to soothe the lesions.

"Patients get itchy but the scars go away with time," the doctor added.

While mpox cases have emerged previously, a new more deadly and more transmissible strain of the virus — clade 1b — causes death in around 3.6 per cent of cases, with infants and children being more at risk, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

The DRC, which has recorded around 16,000 cases so far this year, is the epicentre of an epidemic that led the WHO to trigger on Wednesday its highest level of international alert.

The neighbouring province of South Kivu alone has been detecting some 350 new cases per week, said Justin Bengehya, an epidemiologist at the provincial health division of South Kivu.

Goma, the capital of North Kivu, almost surrounded by an armed rebellion and where hundreds of thousands of displaced people are crammed into makeshift camps, fears a large-scale spread due to promiscuity.

At the treatment centre, parents held their contagious children in their arms despite risks of skin-to-skin transmission, and as staff has been raising awareness about prevention measures.

"My son was hospitalised here for mpox, and my daughter was looking after him. After they got out on a Sunday, my daughter began showing the same symptoms by Wednesday," said Deogracias Mahombi Sekabanza, a health worker who brought his daughter Confiance.

Sekabanza said his son was infected after playing with friends.

The WHO has urged manufacturers to ramp up production of mpox vaccines to rein in the spread of clade 1b cases, asking countries to donate stockpiles to countries with outbreaks.