LONDON (ASSOCIATED PRESS) —
The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed the first case of sexual transmission of monkey pox in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The confirmation was released at a time when the country is facing its largest and most disturbing outbreak. African scientists warn that will make it harder for the disease to spread.
In a statement released on Thursday (23/11) evening, the UN health agency said a Belgian resident went to Congo in March and tested positive for monkeypox or mpox shortly afterwards. The WHO said the individual “identified himself as a man who had a sexual relationship with another man”. He has visited secret clubs for gay and bisexual men.
WHO said that among his sexual contacts, five tested positive for mpox.
“This is the first definitive evidence of sexual transmission of monkeypox in Africa,” said Oyewale Tomori, a Nigerian virus expert who serves on a number of WHO advisory groups.
“The idea that transmission in that way is impossible here has been refuted.”
Mpox has been endemic in parts of central and western Africa for decades. Typically, the virus jumps from infected rodents to humans and causes outbreaks that have limited spread. Last year, the mpox epidemic was sparked primarily by sexual relations between gay and bisexual men in Europe and spread to more than 100 countries. WHO declared the outbreak a global emergency. To date, mpox cases have reached 91 thousand.
WHO notes there are dozens of secret clubs in Congo where men have sex with other men, including those who have traveled to other parts of Europe and Africa. The agency described the recent mpox outbreak as ‘unusual’ and said the outbreak highlighted the risk of the disease spreading widely among national networks.
WHO added that this year’s mpox outbreak in Congo also marked the first time the disease had been identified in the Congolese capital, Kinshasa and in South Kivu, a province rocked by conflict. Mpox has infected 12,500 people and killed 580 people in the country so far.
According to WHO, that figure is roughly double the number of cases in 2020, making it Congo’s largest mpox outbreak.
Virology expert Tomori said that even this figure is likely still below the actual figure and has implications for the whole of Africa, considering that disease surveillance activities on the continent are often uneven.
“What happened in Congo is likely to happen in other parts of Africa,” Tomori said.
“Sexual transmission of monkeypox is likely here, but the (gay) community is hiding due to harsh (anti-LGBTQ) laws in some countries.”
He said that encouraging people at risk of contracting the virus to hide would make it more difficult to contain the disease.
The mpox virus causes fever, chills, rash and sores on the face or genitals. Most sufferers recover within a few weeks without requiring hospitalization.
The WHO said the risk of mpox spreading to other countries in Africa and globally “appears significant.” The agency added there could be “potentially more severe consequences” than last year’s global epidemic.
Tomori lamented that while outbreaks of mpox in Europe and North America prompted mass immunization programs among affected populations, there were no proposals for such a plan in Africa. (ft/ah)