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Nyota Mukobelwa is from Goma, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
She says she was taken to a hospital after she experienced symptoms of mpox.
"At first I felt a headache, fever, muscle pain and pain in my groin. After spots started to appear on me, I thought it must be an infection. My body has completely changed. They came to pick me up, and I arrived here in a Médecins Sans Frontières jeep.”
Goma has for decades been embroiled in the ongoing deadly conflict in the Congo.
Now, the city in the east of the African nation is ground zero in the latest outbreak of mpox, formerly known as monkeypox.
Earlier this week, the World Health Organisation's Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared the rapid spread of the Clade 1b strain an international public health emergency, its highest alert level.
“Last week, I announced that I was convening an emergency committee under the International Health Regulations to evaluate the upsurge of mpox in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and other countries in Africa. Today, the Emergency Committee met and advised me that, in its view, the situation constitutes a public health emergency of international concern. I have accepted that advice. The detection and rapid spread of a new clade of mpox in eastern DRC, its detection in neighbouring countries that had not previously reported mpox, and the potential for further spread within Africa and beyond, is very worrying."
A case of the new variant was confirmed on Thursday in Sweden and linked to a growing outbreak in Africa, the first sign of its spread outside the continent.
Now, another case of mpox has been reported, in Pakistan, in a patient who had recently returned from a Gulf country.
World Health Organisation spokesperson Dr Margaret Harris says it remains unclear if the individual is infected with the new mpox variant, which has killed at least 450 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
"Now, the reason we're concerned is this is a - it's like a variant. It's called Clade One B. Sorry for the name. It's a variant of what we had seen for many decades that had been endemic in Democratic Republic of Congo and West Africa, East Africa. But this one is spreading very rapidly and it's spread to countries in Africa that have never seen it before, such as Rwanda, Kenya, Burundi. We're seeing a lot of cases in Burundi and also in Uganda, and these are countries that have got a lot of contact with the rest of the world. So that's a threat to the rest of the world. But it's really because it's spreading so rapidly, causing so many more cases than we've seen. We've seen in this half-year more cases than we saw all of last year. And last year we saw more cases than we were seeing before."
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has updated its recommendations, urging travellers to consider getting vaccinated against mpox if they will be visiting affected areas in Africa.
German infectious disease expert Leif Erik Sander says it is important that vaccines are made available as a priority.
"I would not recommend a general vaccination campaign for the general population or at risk populations at this stage. It is also clear that the vaccines that are available globally are urgently needed in Africa, are urgently needed in regions where the virus currently is spreading and there is a severe shortage of vaccines."
But there are ongoing concerns about access to immunisations.
Bronwyn Nichol of the International Federation of Red Cross has called for increased international support to boost vaccine supplies.
"We do stand with what is recommended under international health regulations, which is that there's no need to close borders, when we are in disease outbreaks, diseases don't recognise borders. People will continue to cross the border, whether it is illegal crossing or not. An illegal crossing, it doesn't stop a disease from spreading. And instead, we need to focus on having proper messaging around the diseases so people understand how they can protect themselves from impacts."
No new cases of the new strain of mpox have been reported down under so far.
But there has been a surge in the relatively milder strain already present in Australia, with 35 cases recorded in the past 15 days, spread across several states.
CSIRO virologist Nias Peng says the emergence is similar to one in 2022.
Health authorities say it's time to act quickly, to prevent history from being repeated.
