The virus that causes the mpox disease has caused one death out of a total of 53 confirmed cases in the Central African Republic since July, a health ministry official told AFP.

“We are dealing with 310 suspected cases and 53 confirmed cases, including one fatal case,” listed Health Ministry official Valentin Nebaga.

At the end of July, 9 cases were confirmed by the Pasteur institute in Bangui, putting the Ministry of Health on alert.

In mid-August, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a “health emergency of international concern”, its highest level of alert, due to the outbreak of the disease, mainly in African states.

“The epidemic has been controlled in Bangui at the moment, but it remains active,” noted Mr. Nebaga, assuring that “population awareness” and the provision of “free care to infected people” will continue, as will the monitoring of “the their contacts”.

The Central African Republic — the world’s second-least developed country, according to the UN — has so far recorded only a few and isolated cases since the first was detected on its territory in 2016.

In Africa, mpox was present at the end of August in 14 countries, including Burundi (796 cases), Congo-Brazzaville (162), and the Central African Republic (45), according to figures from the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (ACDC).

The epicenter of the current outbreak is DR Congo, with nearly 22,000 cases and 716 deaths attributed to mpox since January, according to local authorities.

A total of some 3.6 million vaccines have been secured for African countries, according to the African Union agency, and some have already reached their intended countries.