Uganda reports first two cases of mpox

Uganda has detected its first two cases of mpox (monkeypox), the Health Ministry said on Saturday.

Uganda has detected its first two cases of mpox (monkeypox), the Health Ministry said on Saturday, a day after the Africa Union allocated $10.4 million in funding to combat the outbreak.

The cases were discovered in the western border district of Kasese, in the towns of Mpondwe and nearby Bwera, the director general of health services Henry Mwenda told AFP.

"Our findings indicate the infections did not take place in Uganda but (came) from DRC," he said of the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.

Nine people were under medical surveillance following contact with the two confirmed cases, he added.

Kenya and Burundi report one and three cases of mpox respectively last month.

On July 20, the DRC reported more than 11,000 suspected cases, including around 450 deaths.

The African Union said on Friday it had "urgently approved $10.4 million from Covid funds to support Africa CDC's efforts to continue to combat the Mpox outbreak across the continent".

The funding for the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will also boost government and partners' actions, the 55-nation AU said.

It will help increase monitoring, laboratory testing, regional and national data collection, case and infection management, and access to vaccines, it added.

New variant

On Monday the eight-member East African Community (EAC) urged governments "to educate their citizens on how to protect themselves and prevent the spread of mpox".

Mpox, previously known as monkeypox, was first discovered in humans in 1970 in the DRC.

It has since been mainly limited to certain West and Central African nations. Humans mainly catch it from infected animals, such as when eating bushmeat.

In May 2022, mpox infections surged worldwide, mostly affecting gay and bisexual men.

That spike was driven by a new subtype, dubbed Clade II, which took over from Clade I.

It prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a public health emergency of international concern in July 2022.

It ended the emergency in May 2023.

But since last September, a new and deadlier Clade I strain has been spreading in the DRC. Testing revealed it was a mutated variant of Clade I, called Clade Ib.