A hygiene promoter, Nathalie Kipenzi, distributes flyers during a Mpox awareness campaign at the Muja camp for displaced people in Nyiragongo, near Goma, DR Congo, August 19, 2024. The DRC is the epicentre of the Mpox outbreak. Reuters
Burundi’s Ministry of Public Health says 193 people are hospitalised with Mpox as it grapples with public sensitisation to stem the spread of the disease.
The ministry said in a statement that 231 people had been diagnosed with the disease by August 25 and, among the patients, 38 had been treated and discharged. No death has been reported.
Out of the 231 positive cases reported, 136 are from North Bujumbura, Kayanza and South Bujumbura districts.
Twenty-nine districts out of the country’s 49 have reported at least one positive Mpox case.
Burundi, a low-income nation struggling with public health financing, has insufficient healthcare equipment and personnel to deal with the latest public health emergency and sensitisation of the population on preventive measures, especially in the public places such as markets, churches, and schools.
Bujumbura, the commercial capital, where most of the cases are reported, lacks sufficient clean water and sanitary facilities, which has been partly blamed for the spread of the disease.
But the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said there are increasing cases of sexually transmitted Mpox.
The government has set aside about a million dollars -- Bf2,667,966,000 -- for the fight against the disease, with help from WHO and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Africa.
Mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, has been a public health problem in parts of Africa since 1970, but received little global attention until it surged internationally in 2022, prompting the WHO to declare a global health emergency. That declaration ended 10 months later.
A new strain of the virus, known as clade Ib, has the world's attention again after the WHO declared a new health emergency this month.
