Sierra Leone seeks help for growing mpox outbreak

Sierra Leonean authorities have called for international help to curb the spread of mpox in the country as a new toll on Saturday showed the number of cases continuing to rise.

A total of 3,350 cases have been recorded since January in the West African country, including 1,779 recoveries and 16 deaths, up from 3,011 cases a week earlier, according to an official report seen by AFP.

That was a smaller increase than the nearly 50 percent rise in registered cases since the previous update on May 13.

"We appreciate our development partners and we will continue to ask for their assistance for the necessary resources to respond to the rising cases of mpox in the country," Deputy Health Minister Charles Senessie told AFP on Friday.

"We are working rounding the clock to bring this pandemic under control, and we will continue to give the necessary human, financial and logistical resources to our health workers so that they can work effectively," Senessie said.

Vice President Mohamed Juldeh and Senessie visited a new mpox treatment centre with a capacity of 400 beds opened in Freetown on Thursday.

Foday Sahr, director of the public agency in charge of combating the disease, said 20,000 vaccine doses were expected to arrive on Sunday, destined for high-risk contacts including healthcare workers.

A total of 42,872 healthcare workers on the front lines of the fight against the disease have been vaccinated so far.

Mpox is caused by a virus from the same family as smallpox, manifesting itself in a high fever and skin lesions.

First identified in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1970, the disease had generally been confined to a dozen African countries before spreading more widely from 2022.

The WHO declared its highest level of alert in 2024 over that outbreak.

Other African countries have seen rising cases of mpox, with thousands of cases notably afflicting Congo, Rwanda, Tanzania, Burundi and Kenya.