The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has increased surveillance following the outbreak of mpox (formerly monkeypox) in some 15 African countries.
The surveillance comes after the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed a total of 2030 cases and 13 monkey pox-related deaths, this year.
The recent statistics show a sharp increase from the 1145 cases and seven deaths recorded in 2023.
Four countries, Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, which had no previous record of monkeypox have since mid-July 2024, confirmed cases.
The Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern after a record surge in cases this year, especially in DR Congo.
Following recent developments, the Director of Public Health at GHS, Dr. Franklin Asiedu Bekoe asked Ghanaians to take the necessary precautions to protect themselves.
“We are going to activate our surveillance system. We are actually going to make it in such a way that there is high awareness among Ghanaians so they do not assume every rash on their body is chicken pox. So we are going to improve on our coordination,” he stressed.
Dr Bekoe also said it was wrong for Ghana to be listed on the website of Africa CDC as one of 15 countries with confirmed Mpox cases in Africa when the last case recorded was in 2023.
“In Ghana, our last case was in April 2023 and so far as we have had some in the past we are going to activate our system on such cases and manage them,” he added.
Mpox is a viral illness caused by the monkeypox virus, a species of the genus Orthopoxvirus.
It spreads from animals to humans and between people through close contact with someone who is infected – including through sex, skin-to-skin contact and talking or breathing close to another person.
It can cause symptoms such as fever, muscle aches and lesions across the body. If left untreated, mpox can be deadly.
The rash starts as flat, red bumps, which can be painful. Those bumps turn into blisters, which fill with pus. Eventually, the blisters crust over and fall off. The whole process can last two to four weeks. You can get sores on your mouth, face, hands, feet, penis, vagina or anus.
However, not everyone with mpox develops all the symptoms.
There are two main strains of the virus known to exist. The milder one caused the global outbreak in 2022 that affected Europe, Australia, the US and many other countries – and was mainly spread through sexual contact.
The second more deadly strain, endemic in central Africa, is behind the recently discovered variant in DR Congo.