Key Points
- A more deadly mpox strain is at risk of spreading beyond the borders of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
- There's also been a significant uptick of new cases in Australia, with experts urging people to get vaccinated.
- WHO’s emergency declaration is meant to spur donor agencies and countries into action.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the increasing spread of mpox
Mpox - formally known as monkeypox - has developed a highly transmissible strain infecting more than 14,000 people and causing 524 deaths in Africa this year.
The vast majority of cases — over 96 per cent — have been recorded in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the potential for mpox's further spread within Africa and beyond is "very worrying".
Professor Andrew Grulich is from the Kirby Institute at the University of NSW, a world-leading research organisation working to eliminate infectious diseases.
He says Central Africa is struggling with mpox, especially a new subvariant of the disease, or what's known as a clade.
"There's a lot of concern about what's happening in central Africa with an ongoing and probably expanding epidemic," he said.
"There is a different clade that is happening in Central Africa, which we think has higher mortality, but this is also in an area where there's quite a lot of untreated HIV and that might explain some of the mortality."
Congolese doctors have reported a fatality rate of about 5 per cent in adults and 10 per cent in children, as well as high rates of miscarriages.
Mpox usually mild, but can be fatal
While mpox was first detected in monkeys in 1956, the first known human case was seen in the Congo in 1970.
The disease is a viral infection that spreads through close contact, causing flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions.
The hands of an mpox patient in the Democratic Republic of the Congo during an outbreak of the disease there in 1997. Credit: AP
In 2022, an international outbreak of mpox marked the first time the disease had spread widely outside Africa.
Scientists are concerned by the spread of a new version of the disease there that might be more easily transmitted among people.
WHO’s emergency declaration on Wednesday is meant to spur donor agencies and countries into action.
A new mpox wave sweeps Australia
In Australia, there's been a significant uptick in cases over the last few months with 241 reported infections in 2024, according to the Department of Health's disease surveillance system.
This represents an increase of 826.9% from the 26 cases seen throughout 2023.
The degree of local transmission is very concerning, said Simon Ruth, CEO of Thorne Harbour Health, one of Australia's largest LGBTIQ+ community-controlled organisations.
"The current outbreak started around Anzac Day in Melbourne", Ruth said during an interview in June.
"The difference between the outbreak this year and then the one that we had 12 months ago — 12 months ago they were almost entirely overseas-acquired. Currently, they're almost entirely locally acquired. So, we've got monkeypox in the community."
LISTEN TO
'We've got monkeypox in the community': Locally-acquired mpox infections up in Australia
SBS News
28/06/202405:57
Grulich says that, while mpox may not prove deadly for most, it often causes pain and disfigurement.
"The type of monkeypox we have in Australia — what's called clade 2b — this has an extremely low mortality around the world but it certainly can cause a lot of pain and some disfigurement," he said.
"Most people get pretty mild disease, but people who may get it more severely are those who have immune problems."
A summer fling and 21 days in isolation
So far, of the 410 Australians affected by the disease since 2022, the vast majority of them have been men, primarily those in the LGBTIQ+ community. Just one woman has been affected by the illness.
Jack Barlow was 26-years-old in 2022 when he contracted mpox during his travels in the US amid the initial outbreak.
"I was on holiday and I went to Provincetown and I kind of had a romantic summer fling, and unfortunately I contracted mpox," he said.
"Luckily, my symptoms kicked in once I had already returned back to Australia a few days into being home, and I was like my jet lag just wasn't going anywhere. And that's when some of the other symptoms started to appear."
He spent 21 days in isolation as one of the first Australians to get the disease.
He considers himself lucky to have only had relatively mild symptoms but says it was a scary time.
"There wasn't a whole lot known about it at the time, and I was kind of scared I was going to end up having quite the serious kind of response, which is being covered head to toe in sores.
"I was pretty lucky. I only had a few pox. I had a bit of fatigue and tiredness. So, I do consider myself one of the lucky ones."
Advocates encourage people to get vaccinated
The main way to prevent mpox is the mpox vaccine, which is estimated to be about 85 per cent effective at preventing the disease after the two-shot course.
In 2023, 48 per cent of gay and bisexual men in Sydney and Melbourne reported having received at least one dose of mpox vaccine.
Ruth says those numbers need to increase.
“We would encourage people to come and get vaccinated. The vaccination is free, it's readily available at a large number of clinics in Victoria and some pharmacies."
He says the community needs to pull together to prevent the spread or else mpox may become a consistent presence in Australia.
"If you're symptomatic, getting it checked out, trying to prevent onward transmission, if you have lesions, keep them covered so that the disease can't spread onto further people. We really don't want it to become endemic in Australia," he said.
"It possibly is becoming endemic in some other parts of the world, particularly through sexual transmission. And it's rare enough here that we can still get on top of it and prevent that."
