Praia, Aug. 16, 2024 (Lusa) - Cabo Verdean authorities will increase surveillance at ports and airports to ‘quickly’ detect suspected cases of the new strain of the Mpox virus and focus on communication and raising awareness, the minister of health announced on Friday.
‘This involves many activities, namely training health professionals in identifying and reporting symptoms and increasing laboratory diagnostic capacity,’ said Filomena Gonçalves, speaking to Rádio de Cabo Verde (RCV).
The minister also said that the Cabo Verdean authorities will ‘increase’ communication and public awareness, which is considered ‘crucial’ for informing people about symptoms, modes of transmission and prevention measures.
She also said that Cabo Verde is already in contact with the World Health Organisation (WHO) and other partners for technical support, treatments and vaccines.
‘We are going to work on drawing up contingency plans to respond to an outbreak if there is one,’ she said, promising continuous monitoring and evaluation of the measures to be implemented.
On Saturday, the WHO declared the Mpox outbreak in Africa a global health emergency, with confirmed cases among children and adults in more than a dozen countries and a new strain circulating.
The organisation called for a unified international response in the face of the identification of the new strain of the virus in Europe (Sweden), a day after the first case was reported in Asia (Pakistan).
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said that the disease particularly affects marginalised communities, who need clear information on how to protect themselves and identify symptoms.
They also need to be convinced to seek medical attention when there are signs of infection and, to this end, the stigma surrounding the disease, which is the main reason why people don't seek help, must be combated.
According to the WHO, there are currently half a million of one of the two vaccines that have been developed in rapid processes against Mpox, and a further 2.5 million doses could be produced next year.
Monkeypox is a viral disease that spreads from animals to humans, but is also transmitted by close physical contact with a person infected with the virus.
Mpox was first discovered in humans in 1970, in present-day DRCongo (formerly Zaire), with the spread of the clade I subtype (of which the new strain is a mutation), which has since been mainly confined to West and Central African countries, where patients are usually infected by animals.
In 2022, a worldwide epidemic of the clade II subtype spread to a hundred countries where the disease was not endemic, affecting mainly homosexual and bisexual men.
The WHO declared a high alert in July 2022 in response to this global outbreak, but lifted it less than a year later, in May 2023. The epidemic has caused around 140 deaths out of an estimated 90,000 cases.
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