Mpox in South Africa: 2 additional cases reported
The South Africa Department of Health calls for the public to maintain vigilance and never lower their guard against mpox disease, as the country remains on high alert for a possible surge. Two more laboratory-confirmed cases of mpox have been recorded this week and available scientific data suggests that the disease is transmitting from person-to-person within the borders of the country.
This increases the total number of positive cases from 20 to 22 since the outbreak of mpox in May this year; the number of deaths remain at three. This is despite heightened public awareness and intensive contact tracing activities to curb the spread of the disease.
The latest cases include a 40-year-old man diagnosed at a private health facility in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal on 6 July 2024. The patient is from Johannesburg, Gauteng but travelled to Durban over the past weekend where mpox-like rash developed.
The other case is a 26-year-old man from Nqutu in KwaZulu-Natal who presented with mpox-like rash to a local hospital. Both new cases self-identified as MSM with no international, but local travel history.
The department would like to urge all people who experience any of the mpox symptoms, with or without international travel history to present themselves to a health facility for clinical observation and confine themselves to one place until their test results are available.
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Contact tracing and monitoring is ongoing in both provinces, especially amongst the close contacts of the patients. We urge all the identified and suspected contacts to cooperate with health officials during contact tracing for screening and possible diagnosis to prevent further transmission of this preventable and treatable disease.
Since the beginning of the year, a total of 11,497 cases (2145 confirmed, 9352 suspected) and 449 deaths (CFR 3.91%) in eight African Union Member States.