Sierra Leone has reported its first confirmed case of mpox since the World Health Organization (WHO) raised its highest alert level for the potentially deadly viral disease last year.
According to the National Public Health Agency, the patient is a 27-year-old man from the rural district of the Western Zone, near the capital Freetown.
“Health teams are actively tracing and investigating to identify potentially exposed persons and to prevent further spread,” the agency announced in a social media post.
The confirmed case was detected on January 10, though health officials have not specified the variant affecting the patient.
Mpox, caused by a virus from the same family as smallpox, presents with high fever and skin lesions known as vesicles. The disease was first identified in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1970 and had mainly been limited to a dozen African countries before spreading more widely in 2022, including to regions where the virus had not previously…
Source: Linda Ikeji
