November 12, 2024
Another Rwandan Health Worker Gets Marburg, While Cases Of Kids Co-infected With Mpox And Measles Rise
Dr Ngashi Ngongo (Africa CDC) and Dr Jean-Marie Yameogo (WHO), the continental co-leads on mpox.

Rwanda has recorded its 63rd Marburg case, while cases of children coinfected with both mpox and measles are rising in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to officials at the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) weekly media briefing on Thursday.

After 10 days of no new cases, a health worker who has been caring for Marburg patients tested positive for the virus on Wednesday night, Rwandan Health Minister Dr Sabin Nsanzimana told the briefing.

But the health worker was vaccinated a few days ago and is “doing well” with disease presentation that was “not usual”, Nsanzimana added.

“The good thing is that the person has been in a treatment centre and has no contacts outside the centre,” he added. 

Meanwhile, the source of the Marburg outbreak has been traced to fruit bats in a cave where the index case had been mining, said Nsanzimana.

Once this had been confirmed, all human activity at the cave had been stopped and the government is following up on the people working there, to make sure they they don’t develop the disease, he added.

Genome sequencing of the virus confirmed that it was both very close to the zoonotic source – the virus in the bats – and to other Marburg cases imported into the country.

This underscored the importance of a One Health approach involving experts on human and  animal health and the environment, said Nsanzimana.

Mpox testing slowly improving

Some 2,729 new mpox cases were reported in the past week – over 90% of which in DRC and Burundi, although Liberia, Kenya and Uganda reported new cases, according to Dr Ngashi Ngongo, Africa CDC’s lead on mpox.

There has been an increase in mpox patients under the age of 15 being co-infected with measles in the DRC, particularly in Nord Kivu and Sud Kivu – but it is unclear whether one disease made children susceptible to the other. 

Little more than half the children in these areas have not been vaccinated against measles and there is also a high malnutrition rate, which weakens the children’s immune systems, said Ngongo.

“We haven’t yet established if the fact that you get measles, then increase your chances of getting mpox and vice versa,” he added.

The DRC’s vaccination campaign underway in six provinces, was generally going well with over 39,000 people vaccinated. Nigeria plans to launch its vaccination campaign on 29 October.

“We have 5.6 million doses of mpox vaccines that have been confirmed, of which 2.5 million are MVA-BN and three million of the LC16 from Japan,” said Ngongo.

Close to 900,000 doses of MVA-BN are available this month October, with another 700,000 potentially available in November, which he described as being “enough, at least, for the moment, to cover the plans that we have received”.

However, getting vaccines for children remains a challenge although World Health Organization (WHO) has said that the MVA-BN can be used “off label” for children at risk.

After weeks of struggling to increase testing, there had been a 37% increase in tests in the past week – and a big jump in test positivity from 36.5% to 63%.

This can be attributed to training on sample management, PCR and Gene Xpert testing, more sequencing equipment, as well as the distribution of more Gene Xperts cartridges (to run the machines), and PCR tests being set to affected countries.

No new cases have been recorded in Cameroon, Gabon, Guinea, Rwanda and South Africa in the past four weeks.

However, surveillance has been a huge challenge, said Ngongo. Only four of the 18 affected countries had reached contact tracing targets of 10 per patient.

Meanwhile, the Robert Koch Institute in Germany reported the country’s first case of mpox Clade 1b. The patient recently traveled out of the country, but it not clear where he been. Outside of Africa, Sweden and Thailand have also each reported a case of mpox 1b, the more virulent version of the .

Combat the infodemic in health information and support health policy reporting from the global South. Our growing network of journalists in Africa, Asia, Geneva and New York connect the dots between regional realities and the big global debates, with evidence-based, open access news and analysis. To make a personal or organisational contribution click here on PayPal.

link

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *