Sierra Leone’s health ministry has reported a significant surge in mpox cases, with the total number registered since the start of the year reaching 2,045, including 11 deaths.
Authorities released the updated figures late on Monday, revealing 165 new cases reported on Sunday alone.
At the beginning of May, health officials had recorded nine deaths and 1,140 cases in the West African nation.
The report’s release coincided with Health Minister Austin Demby’s appeal to the Indian High Commissioner on Tuesday for 100,000 doses of mpox vaccines in response to the escalating crisis.
“We have a state problem on our hands,” Minister Demby told parliament, while expressing confidence in the country’s resilience, citing its past experiences with Ebola and COVID-19.
He stated his belief that “this too we will handle” as Sierra Leone confronts this latest health challenge.
In February, the government established four treatment centers in the capital, Freetown, to address the growing number of infections.
Several other African nations, including Congo, Rwanda, Tanzania, Burundi, and Kenya, have also experienced a rise in mpox cases, with thousands affected.
Minister Demby noted a gradual increase in cases since January, which saw only one or two daily infections.
This number rose to 50 cases in both March and April before a significant spike in May, predominantly in the western regions of the country, affecting both urban and rural areas.
Mpox is caused by a virus belonging to the same family as smallpox, and its symptoms include high fever and skin lesions.
The disease was first identified in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1970 and was largely confined to about a dozen African countries before its wider spread beginning in 2022.
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared its highest level of alert for the disease in 2024.
A decade prior, Sierra Leone was severely impacted by the Ebola epidemic between 2014 and 2016, which resulted in approximately 4,000 deaths, including nearly seven percent of the country’s healthcare professionals.
