The Sudanese Ministry of Health announced on Monday (August 1st) that it had detected the first case of monkeypox in the country, in a 16-year-old teenager in the state of West Darfur, bordering Chad.
The country’s health system, one of the poorest in the world, is fragile: according to Unicef, “only 70%“of the 45 million Sudanese”have access to a health facility in less than 30 minutes“. Sudan suffers from a lack of infrastructure to make water drinkable and treat wastewater, factors thatpromote disease transmissionAccording to Unicef, while 13 of the country’s 18 states experienced episodes of chikungunya, dengue or diphtheria in 2021.
Read alsoMan infected with monkeypox dies in India
SEE ALSO – Monkey pox: “we do not recommend mass vaccination”, announces the WHO
A week ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) claimed to have identified 26 cases of monkeypox in five countries in the Arab world. Since May, monkeypox infections have been on the rise outside West and Central Africa where it was already endemic. So much so that the WHO triggered its highest level of alert on Saturday in an attempt to curb the disease. Its boss, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, identified more than 18,000 cases on Wednesday in 78 countries, including 70% in Europe and 25% on the American continent.
A total of eight deaths have been recorded worldwide since May. Monkeypox can be caught through close physical contact with an infected person, animal or material. It usually heals on its own after two to four weeks. The first symptoms are fever, headache, muscle and back pain for five days. Rashes then appear on the face, palms of the hands and soles of the feet, followed by painful lesions, pimples and finally scabs.
SEE ALSO – ‘Worst pains of my life’: New Yorker recounts monkeypox experience