Nearly all cases and more than 450 deaths this year have been reported from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As a result, all eyes have been on this country.
The news has visited treatment facilities in the east of the nation and discovered that youngsters are most severely impacted by the potentially fatal illness.
It started off as a little swollen area. When the mother squeezed it, a liquid discharge emerged. Then another one appeared, and in a short while, they spread across the body,” recalls Alain Matabaro of the development of mpox in his six-year-old son Amani.
After four days of therapy at a clinic in Munigi, near the important eastern Congolese city of Goma, he began to improve.
Dr. Pierre-Olivier Ngadjole of the charity Medair estimates that approximately 75% of the cases seen by the medical professionals there are from youngsters under the age of ten.
mumpsThe mpox pandemic appears to be more harmful to young people because of their immature immune systems.
Dr. Ngadjole also assigns blame to the overcrowding at a neighboring camp that was set up for residents who had been forced to flee the violence in the area. Children “are always playing together” and extremely close contact are two ways that mpox is spread. He tells the news that “they don’t really care about social distance.”