Cape Town – While South Africa and the rest of the world continue to make strides in recovering from the Covid-19 global pandemic, a new crisis has hit Europe in the form of monkeypox, leaving many on the African continent in uncertainty.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the monkeypox outbreak has infected over 100 people in about 15 countries, while several other disease outbreaks such as acute hepatitis in children and Ebola have been reported.
In an address to the UN’s World Health Assembly in Geneva on Sunday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the world is not over the pandemic, which has claimed six million lives, and that the risk of monkeypox spreading to the wider public is low.
While the initial cases were first reported across Britain, Portugal, Spain and the US, cases continue to rise, which prompted Belgium to become the first country to make a 21-day quarantine compulsory for monkeypox patients.
"It is something everyone should be concerned about."
US President Biden says the US is looking into available treatments and vaccines for monkeypox after the World Health Organisation identified about 80 monkeypox cases globallyhttps://t.co/9hysxL1hfL
📺 Sky 501 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/J5UCnFbKob
— Sky News (@SkyNews) May 22, 2022
Further abroad, US President Joe Biden told reporters on Sunday during his visit to South Korea that “everybody” should be worried about the spread of monkeypox, with national security adviser assuring the public that the US has a vaccine that could treat the virus.
Meanwhile, in South Africa, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) released a statement on Monday confirming there are “no monkeypox cases in South Africa”.
“The implications for South Africa are that the risk of importation of monkeypox is a reality, as lessons learnt from Covid-19 have illustrated that outbreaks in another part of the world can fast become a global concern,” said NICD Executive Director, Prof Adrian Puren.
#MonkeypoxUpdate: Although 15 countries have collectively reported more than 140 #monkeypox cases, our institute confirms that there are currently no cases in SA. To find out more about the global situation, symptoms and more, read here: https://t.co/liYlx6szsb pic.twitter.com/axOINogmQD
— NICD (@nicd_sa) May 23, 2022
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