Shiloh
Editor, Senior Moderator
Source: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11...ak-sickness-and-death-go-undetected/101620620
In Africa's monkeypox outbreak, sickness and death go undetected, threatening more flare-ups across the continent and globally
Posted 15h ago
At a village clinic in central Democratic Republic of Congo, separated from the world by a tangle of waterways and forests, six-year-old Angelika Lifafu grips her dress and screams as nurses in protective suits pick at one of hundreds of boils that trouble her delicate skin.
Her uncle, 12-year-old Lisungi Lifafu, sits at the foot of her bed, facing away from the sunlight that pours through the doorway and pains his swollen, weeping eyes. When nurses approach, he raises his chin, but cannot look up.
The children have monkeypox, a disease first detected in Congo 50 years ago, but cases of which have spiked in West and Central Africa since 2019. The illness received little attention until it spread worldwide this year, infecting 77,000 people.
Global health bodies have counted far fewer cases in Africa during the current outbreak than in Europe and the United States, which snapped up the limited number of vaccines this year when the illness arrived at their shores.
But the outbreak, and death toll, in Congo could be much greater than recorded in official statistics, Reuters reporting shows, in large part because testing in under-equipped rural areas is so limited and effective medicines are unavailable.
During a six-day trip to the remote region of Tshopo this month, Reuters reporters found about 20 monkeypox patients, including two who had died, whose cases were not recorded until reporters visited. None of them, including Angelika and Lisungi, had access to vaccines or anti-viral drugs...
In Africa's monkeypox outbreak, sickness and death go undetected, threatening more flare-ups across the continent and globally
Posted 15h ago
At a village clinic in central Democratic Republic of Congo, separated from the world by a tangle of waterways and forests, six-year-old Angelika Lifafu grips her dress and screams as nurses in protective suits pick at one of hundreds of boils that trouble her delicate skin.
Her uncle, 12-year-old Lisungi Lifafu, sits at the foot of her bed, facing away from the sunlight that pours through the doorway and pains his swollen, weeping eyes. When nurses approach, he raises his chin, but cannot look up.
The children have monkeypox, a disease first detected in Congo 50 years ago, but cases of which have spiked in West and Central Africa since 2019. The illness received little attention until it spread worldwide this year, infecting 77,000 people.
Global health bodies have counted far fewer cases in Africa during the current outbreak than in Europe and the United States, which snapped up the limited number of vaccines this year when the illness arrived at their shores.
But the outbreak, and death toll, in Congo could be much greater than recorded in official statistics, Reuters reporting shows, in large part because testing in under-equipped rural areas is so limited and effective medicines are unavailable.
During a six-day trip to the remote region of Tshopo this month, Reuters reporters found about 20 monkeypox patients, including two who had died, whose cases were not recorded until reporters visited. None of them, including Angelika and Lisungi, had access to vaccines or anti-viral drugs...