The Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro has recorded thousands of cases of monkeypox in recent years, as global health leaders call for a co-ordinated response to a surge of cases
Thousands of cases of monkeypox have been recorded in one city in South America.
Local reports say 1,266 people have had the disease in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro since 2022, according to the Municipal Health Department. A total of 3,800 reports of transmission have been made with seven new confirmed cases in August this year.
Monkeypox can cause sore rashes which can begin on the face or genitals and then spread to other parts of the body. Before healing the rashes can scab over and be painful, while a person suffering from the virus can feel ill with a fever, chills, body aches and tiredness.
They may also experience horrible bleeding from the rectum, as well as swollen lymph nodes.
Despite over 1,200 cases, Rio is still second to Sao Paolo in terms of confirmed cases.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation declared the ongoing surge of cases in Africa a global emergency. It followed scientists detecting a new version of the disease in Congo that they think could be spreading more easily in May.
On August 30, WHO Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the surge in cases can end in the next six months if the governments of different countries work together on the issue.
He spoke about the rise in cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the epicentre of the virus outbreak where 629 deaths among 18,000 cases have been reported this year alone.
“With the governments’ leadership and close cooperation between partners, we believe we can stop these outbreaks in the next six months,” he said at a press briefing.
He said that while mpox infections have been rising quickly in the last few weeks, there have been relatively few deaths. Tedros also noted there were 258 cases of the newest version of mpox, with patients identified in Burundi, Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, Sweden and Thailand.
Scientists have previously pointed out that without a better understanding of how mpox is spreading in Africa, it may be difficult to know how best to use the shots.
Earlier this week, the head of Africa’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said the continent was hoping to receive about 380,000 doses of mpox vaccines promised by donors, including the US and the European Union. That’s less than 15% of the doses authorities have said are needed to end the mpox outbreaks in Congo.