Medical staff on the front line of the battle against mpox in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have told the BBC they are desperate for vaccines to arrive so they can stem the rate of new infections. At a treatment centre in South Kivu province that the BBC visited in the epicentre of the outbreak, they say more patients are arriving every day – especially babies – and there is a shortage of essential equipment. Mpox – formerly known as monkeypox – is a highly contagious disease and has killed at least 635 people in DR Congo this year.
Even though 200,000 vaccines, donated by the European Commission, were flown into the capital, Kinshasa, last week, they are yet to be transported across this vast country – and it could be several weeks before they reach South Kivu. Glody Murhabazi Women and children sit waiting to see a doctor. Lwiro Hospital is overcrowded with patients with the highly infectious disease. He said this was the first time he had treated patients with mpox and every day he feared catching it and passing it on to his own children – aged seven, five and one.
The reason it will take time to transport the vaccines is that they need to be stored at a precise temperature – below freezing – to maintain their potency, plus they need to be sent to rural areas of South Kivu, like Kamituga, Kavumu and Lwiro, where the outbreak is rife. The lack of infrastructure and bad roads mean that helicopters could possibly be used to drop some of the vaccines, which will further drive up costs in a country that is already struggling financially.
At the community clinic, Dr Pacifique Karanzo appeared fatigued and downbeat having been rushed off his feet all morning. Although he wore a face shield, I could see the sweat running down his face. He said he was saddened to see patients sharing beds. Another problem, he said, was that there was not enough personal protective equipment [PPE] for the medics.
More and more babies with mpox are being admitted to Lwiro community hospital. As you enter Lwiro Community Hospital, which is about an hour’s drive north of South Kivu’s main city of Bukavu, two main things hit you. First the resounding and loud cries of babies. The second is the stench – a mix of urine and stagnant water. The clinic is running out of clean water, meaning they have to ration what they have in the small jerrycans underneath their beds.
Within the last three weeks, the clinic, which usually treats about 80 patients a month, has been inundated with nearly 200 patients – who are getting younger. Her son, Murhula, is currently the youngest mpox case at the clinic – at only four weeks old. This is the first time she, like many others here, has encountered mpox, which is caused by a virus in the same family as smallpox. The disease causes a loss of appetite, leaving many of the children malnourished.
In an adjacent room, several women and children – nearly 20 – were crammed inside, sharing only seven beds and two mattresses that were laid on the floor. The hospital’s first mpox case did recover – 10-month-old Amenipa Kabuya. But not long after being discharged, her mother, Yvette Kabuya, returned as she too has fallen ill with mpox. Witnessing what the disease does to the body – the painful puss-filled lesions, the fever and the weight loss – means people are keen for the vaccines – unusual in an area that has witnessed vaccine hesitancy in the past.
SOURCE: BBC
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