Two months after Mpox was declared a global health emergency, the Democratic Republic of the Congo began administering vaccines for the diseases which killed this year 859.
Some of the 265,000 doses donated to the DRC by the EU and the US were administered in the eastern city of Goma in North Kivu province, where hospitals and health workers have been overstretched, struggling to contain the new and possibly more infectious strain of mpox.
Eastern DRC was identified as the epicenter of the virus which has spread outside DRC borders with some 38,000 infections in the continent.
The DRC, with about 30,000 suspected mpox cases and 859 deaths, accounts for more than 80% of all the cases and 99% of all the deaths reported in Africa.
International NGOs have urged speedy delivery of the vaccines to DRC to contain the virus. Infighting in the country’s east has hampered efforts to fight the virus.