Nigeria Accounts For 63% Of Africa’s Monkeypox Cases
The World Health Organization (WHO) has recently published a situation report on Monkeypox which revealed that Nigeria currently accounts for 63 percent of the Monkeypox disease burden in Africa.
According to the report, while the total number of confirmed cases of Monkeypox disease in Africa between January 1, 2022, and January 1, 2023, is 1,200, the total number of confirmed cases in Nigeria in the same period is 756.
It was gathered from the report that while the total number of deaths on the continent stands at 15, Nigeria accounts for seven.
The WHO report, published Thursday, showed that from January 1, 2022, through January 1, 2023, a cumulative total of 83,943 laboratory-confirmed cases of Monkeypox and 75 deaths have been reported to WHO from 110 countries/territories/areas in all six WHO Regions.
From the 26th of December, 2022 to the 1st of January, 2023, eight countries have reported an increase in the weekly number of cases, with the highest increase reported in Mexico.
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“As of 2 January, 79 of the 110 affected countries have not reported new cases for over 21 days, the maximum incubation period of the disease – five more countries since the last report.
“The number of weekly new cases reported globally has decreased by 44.6 percent in week 52 (December 26, 2022, through January 1, 2023) (n = 373 cases) compared to week 51 (December 19 through December 25, 2022) (n = 673 cases), with the largest proportional decrease observed in the African region (-99 percent) and the European Region (-94 percent).
“The high number of cases reported by the African Region in week 51 of 2022 (Figure 1) is not a sudden increase of mpox cases but represents a surveillance artifact due to the delay in the reporting of a backlog of cases occurring in the previous weeks.
“From 15 December 2022 through 1 January 2023, a total of 10 deaths were reported from Peru (eight deaths), Chile (one death), and Cameroon (one death).
“As of January 1, 2023, the 10 countries that have reported the highest cumulative number of cases globally are the United States of America (n = 29,603), Brazil (n = 10,498), Spain (n = 7,496), France (n = 4,114), Colombia (n = 4,021), the United Kingdom (n = 3,730), Germany (n = 3,676), Peru (n = 3,643), Mexico (n = 3,637), and Canada (n = 1,460).
“Together, these countries account for 86 percent of the cases reported globally.”
