Category: Monkeypox
In Remote Eastern Congo, a New Mpox Variant Is Attacking Children
WSJ An earlier strain was concentrated among adult men. Now the virus is moving quickly between children and in many cases it is proving fatal. Democratic Republic of Congo—The sound of children crying never lets up in this overcrowded village clinic. Grade-school boys and girls roam around barefoot, covered in bulbous sores. Sick infants lie beside their mothers in […]
Oct 22, 2024
Germany detects first mpox variant Ib case
DW An infection with the new mpox variant Ib has been detected for the first time in Germany. The strain has been spreading in several African countries for months. Germany’s disease control agency, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), announced on Tuesday that an mpox infection that was contracted abroad had been detected within the country. Despite the […]
Oct 22, 2024
Mpox Vaccine in Teens Generates Robust Immune Response, Proves Safe
MedPageToday The modified vaccinia Ankara-Bavarian Nordic mpox vaccine (MVA-BN; Jynneos) generated robust immune responses in adolescents against mpox and was safe, according to an interim analysis of a phase II clinical trial. Two doses of the vaccine generated geometric mean titers (GMT) in adolescents (470.3, 95% CI 422.3-523.8) that were higher than titers in adults […]
Oct 22, 2024
Zimbabwe Reports Its First Mpox Cases As Outbreak Continues To Spread Through Africa
IFLScience Zimbabwe is the latest country to report cases of mpox, the first in its history. Two people, an 11-year-old boy and a 24-year-old man, are known to have been infected, both with recent travel history to other countries. The variant of the virus has not been specified. South Africa’s SABC news broadcast an announcement from Zimbabwe […]
Oct 15, 2024
How the Mpox Response Has Learned from History
Scientific American The abandoned buildings behind the New Somerset hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, are prime real estate along the waterfront, so guards patrol the area day and night to protect against squatters. But squatters aren’t the only visitors. Tucked in among the empty facades is the Ivan Toms Center for Health, one of the […]
Oct 15, 2024
The end of smallpox was … the beginning for mpox
NPR It all started with an unremarkable trip to grandma’s house in 1970. But two days into the visit, something went terribly wrong. The 9-month-old grandson fell ill. First, a fever. Then, a nasty rash. Alarmed doctors suspected smallpox but, instead, they soon discovered something even more bewildering: The first-known human case of monkeypox, now called […]
Oct 8, 2024
Race to combat mpox misinformation as vaccine rollout in DRC begins
Guardian For doctors and nurses fighting mpox in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the virus itself is not the only enemy. They are also facing swirling rumours and misinformation. The first of millions of promised doses of mpox vaccine have finally started to arrive. Now the focus is on ensuring that people who need them will take them […]
Oct 2, 2024
The majority of mpox cases can’t be tracked
Devex Health responders are largely not able to track how the virus is moving from person to person as cases steadily increase across the African continent. As cases of mpox steadily increase across the African continent, some 68% of them don’t have an epidemiological link — meaning they’re popping up among people that health workers aren’t […]
Oct 2, 2024
The Current International Mpox Emergency and the U.S. Role: An Explainer
KFF Major outbreaks of mpox – the infectious disease previously called monkeypox – are ongoing in a number of African countries, in particular the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). In addition, several mpox cases linked to the DRC outbreak have now been identified in some non-African countries, including Sweden and Thailand. Due to these […]
Oct 2, 2024
Sex workers find themselves at the center of Congo’s mpox outbreak
AP It’s been four months since Sifa Kunguja recovered from mpox, but as a sex worker, she said, she’s still struggling to regain clients, with fear and stigma driving away people who’ve heard she had the virus. “It’s risky work,” Kunguja, 40, said from her small home in eastern Congo. “But if I don’t work, I […]
Oct 2, 2024