New mpox form detected amid DR Congo outbreak

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) is struggling to contain its biggest mpox outbreak and scientists say a new form of the disease detected in a mining town might more easily spread among people.

Since January, Congo has reported more than 4,500 suspected mpox cases and nearly 300 deaths, numbers that have roughly tripled from the same period last year, WHO data showed.

DR Congo recently declared the outbreak across the country to be a health emergency.

An analysis of people hospitalized from October last year to January in Kamituga, eastern Congo, suggests recent genetic mutations in mpox are the result of its continued transmission in humans.

It is happening in a town where people have little contact with the wild animals thought to naturally carry the disease.

“We’re in a new phase of mpox,” said Placide Mbala-Kingebeni, the lead researcher of the study, who said it would soon be submitted to a journal for publication.

Mbala-Kingebeni heads a lab at the Congolese National Institute of Biomedical Research, which studies the genetics of diseases.

The lesions reported by most people with the disease are milder and on the genitals, Mbala-Kingebeni said, making it trickier to diagnose.

In previous outbreaks in Africa, lesions were mostly on the chest, hands and feet.

He also said that the new form seems to have a lower death rate.

In a report on the global mpox situation this week, WHO said that the new version of the disease might require a new testing strategy to pick up the mutations.

With experts saying that fewer than half of people in DR Congo with mpox are tested, Mbala-Kingebeni said: “The risk is that unless patients themselves come forward, we will have a silent transmission of the disease and nobody will know.”

Mbala-Kingebeni said most people were infected via sex, with about one-third of mpox cases found in sex workers.

It was not until the 2022 global emergency of mpox that scientists established the disease was spread via sex, with homosexual men most often affected.