DAKAR, Senegal (AP) 鈥� Sierra Leone declared a state of emergency Monday after the country reported its second case of in less than four days, health authorities said.
Neither case had known recent contact with infected animals or other sick individuals, the health ministry said. Only the first case involved recent travel, limited to the airport town of Lungi in the northern Port Loko District between Dec. 26 and Jan. 6th. Both patients are receiving treatment at a hospital in the capital, Freetown.
Mpox, also known as monkeypox, was first identified by scientists in 1958 when outbreaks of a 鈥減ox-like鈥� disease in monkeys occurred. Until recently, most human cases were who had close contact with infected animals.
In 2022, the virus was confirmed to for the first time and triggered outbreaks in more than 70 countries across the world that had not previously reported mpox. , with a vast majority of the roughly 43,000 suspected cases and 1,000 deaths in Africa this year.
Sierra Leone was previously the epicenter of the , the deadliest in history. The outbreak, primarily concentrated in West Africa, affected Sierra Leone the most, with nearly 4,000 deaths out of the more than 11,000 recorded globally. The country also lost 7% of its healthcare workforce to the outbreak.
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Kemo Cham And Wilson Mcmakin, The Associated Press
