The first delivery of sanitary equipment to combat the mpox outbreak has arrived in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, local authorities report.
The outbreak of an mpox variant in the region has caused international health authorities to worry.
The office of the governor of North Kivu province told AFP that five tonnes of drugs, protective kits, and disinfectant solutions are included in the sanitary equipment.
Goma, a city in North Kivu, has approximately one million residents and is encircled by an armed uprising, resulting in hundreds of thousands of individuals living on the outskirts.
“Our greatest concern is the displaced persons camps,” Doctor Gaston Lubambo, chief medical officer of the provincial health department told AFP.
Lubambo said 194 cases with no death have been recorded in North Kivu since June.
The office of the governor of North Kivu province told AFP that in South Kivu, almost 6,000 cases and 35 deaths have been recorded since January.
This makes up over a quarter of the total number of infections recorded in DRC.
The DRC is the hotbed of the latest mpox outbreak with 21,500 cases and 700 deaths recorded. The situation in the Sub-Saharan country has become intricate with the emergence of the Clade 1b variant.
Specialists cannot ascertain how contagious and dangerous the variant is.
The DRC has been receiving vaccine donations from the European Union and the United States since last week. The country has received about 265,000 vaccine doses, but according to the government, they need to be distributed across the country in readiness for a vaccination campaign that is set to begin next month.
In Africa alone, mpox exists in 14 countries, including Burundi, Congo-Brazzaville and the Central African Republic.
