Sierra Leone Emerges 384 Confirmed Cases of Empox in One Week
May 09, 2025
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If you get Empox, an acute fever rash disease caused by viral infection, you often show symptoms of blistering rash, and it may be accompanied by acute fever, headache, and muscle pain. Since early last year, the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared an international public health emergency (PHEIC) in August last year after the spread of sub-system type 1b (Clade 1b) Empox, a new variant with a high fatality rate and high transmission speed in Africa.
According to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as of the 7th (local time), 50,282 suspected cases of M.Fox have been reported on the African continent this year. Of these, 11,702 cases were finally confirmed. Both suspected and confirmed cases decreased by more than 30% from the same period last year.
Since last year, most of the more than 120,000 suspected Empox cases and 1,700 deaths have come from central and eastern Africa, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda and Burundi.
However, as of the 7th, the African CDC announced that 384 confirmed cases of M.Fox were reported in Sierra Leone in the last week. This accounts for 50.7% of all confirmed cases on the African continent (758 cases) during the same period. In Sierra Leone, the number of confirmed cases of Empox surged 63% in just a week, while Uganda and Burundi are steadily decreasing, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo is also showing signs of flattening.
Meanwhile, Sierra Leone was the epicenter of the 2014 Ebola outbreak, and by 2016, about 4,000 people, including 7% of healthcare workers, had died from Ebola. Regarding M.Fox, a public health emergency was declared in January after two cases of infection were confirmed.
Reporter Kim So-hyung compact@sportschosun.com
This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
