The hands of a patient with a skin rash caused by the mpox virus are pictured at the treatment centre of Vijana Hospital in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo on August 30, 2024. DRC is the epicentre of the new outbreak.
Zimbabwe has confirmed its first two cases of mpox, the government said on Sunday, without specifying the variant.
The first case was detected in an 11-year-old boy, in the southern town of Mberengwa, who showed symptoms last month after returning from neighbouring South Africa.
The second case is a 24-year-old man, in the capital Harare, who fell ill after travelling to Tanzania last month.
Health minister Douglas Mombeshora said both patients were recovering well and the authorities had initiated contact tracing.
“The Ministry of Health and Child Care wishes to reassure the public that the situation is under control and urges the Zimbabwean public not to panic,” Dr Mombeshora told journalists in Harare.
He said the government had put its structures on “high alert, including at all ports of entry” to control the outbreak.
Johannes Masara, a public health expert, said Zimbabwe needed to intensify disease surveillance at its ports of entry to contain the outbreak.
“What happens in countries bordering us may spill into Zimbabwe,” Dr Masara said.
“We must go through mitigatory and containment measures and what we need is to reduce person-to-person transmission, taking note of the fact that we need to do robust case management.
“We must continue with health awareness campaigns, upscale our testing, surveillance and contact tracing.
“We need to tighten borders in terms of screening so that we don’t allow undetected cases to flourish in our country or pass through our borders.”
Itai Rusike, executive director of the Community Working Group on Health, which advocates for universal access to health, said the outbreak must be taken seriously as the risk of the disease spreading is high.
“We urge the public to look out for correct information regarding the confirmed cases of mpox in Harare and Mberengwa and maintain that an outbreak anywhere is potentially an outbreak everywhere as we saw with the Covid-19 pandemic,” Mr Rusike said.
Zimbabwe’s neighbour Zambia reported its first mpox case last week, but also did not disclose the strain.
South Africa has reported 25 laboratory-confirmed cases since May, with three deaths.
In August, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared mpox a global public health emergency due to the spread of a new variant, “clade ib”, which is transmitted through routine close contact.
The WHO said it was working with Zimbabwe to combat the outbreak.
“WHO Zimbabwe is working closely with the Ministry of Health and Child Care to enhance response, readiness and preparedness to combat this viral infection that has spread from the DRC to 16 other neighbouring countries in Africa,” the WHO said on X (formerly Twitter).
Mpox typically causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions. The disease is usually mild but severe cases can lead to death.
