The National Institute of Health, RBC, has announced that every week four or five people in Rwanda become infected with the chronic monkeypox disease known as Mpox, almost all of them are infected through sexual contact.
In July 2024, the first case of monkeypox was reported in Rwanda.
Director of Epidemic Control at RBC, Dr. Edson Rwagasore, told the RBA that animal-borne diseases continue to increase and people should always be prepared.
He said, “Many infections are from animals to humans. It requires that we prepare, work with different institutions, cooperate in the exchange of information."
He explained that the Mpox epidemic has not gone anywhere because it infects between four and five people every week, while 95% of them are sexually transmitted.
He said, "Currently, at least every week we do not miss between four and five patients among those we examine and find that they have this disease.
Of all the patients we have seen, most of them, more than 95%, are people who are infected through sex."
a disease that is spread through contact with an infected person or the tissues of an infected person.
It can also be transmitted through sexual contact, kissing, or touching someone who has the disease.
Its symptoms are a rash on the body that often affects the genitals, face, hands and feet. Other symptoms include fever, headache, joint pain and dizziness.
So far Mpox has appeared in 19 countries, while in the Democratic Republic of the Congo this epidemic has reached more than 80% of the districts.
In November 2024, countries including Central Africa, Côte d'Ivoire, Rwanda, DRC, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, South Sudan and Uganda received more than 900,000 Mpox vaccines.
