Sudan’s health ministry on Sunday confirmed its first case of monkeypox. The patient is a 16-year-old student from West Darfur state, the country’s health ministry said.
The World Health Organisation, WHO, last week declared the monkeypox outbreak a global health emergency.
There are more than 21,000 cases worldwide so far, according to the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.
According to the ministry, all but one of the suspected cases of monkeypox in West Darfur had tested negative for the virus out of at least 38 total cases. To stop the illness from spreading, it was stated that health officials were attempting to identify the student’s contacts.
On July 26, News Central reported that eight persons contracted the Monkeypox disease in Edo State, Southern Nigeria.
Monkeypox has been endemic in West and Central Africa for decades, but cases have been linked to animal spillover rather than human-to-human transmission. In previous outbreaks outside of African countries, such as the one in the United States in 2003, cases were linked to contact with infected animals or travel to endemic areas.
While it is still unknown how monkeypox entered humans in the current outbreak, the virus has spread through close, intimate contact; a deviation from previous outbreaks.