Mpox: South Africa reports 20 new cases and three deaths

South Africa has reported 20 new confirmed cases of mpox, including three deaths, in the past two months (8 May to 2 July), the World Health Organization has said.1Cases have been reported in three of the country’s nine provinces: Gauteng (10 cases, one death), Western Cape (one case), and KwaZulu-Natal (nine cases, two deaths). Almost all cases (18) required hospital admission.As part of the ongoing 2022-2024 multi-country outbreak,2 South Africa had only reported five mpox cases, with no new cases reported in 2023. All five of those cases had also reported international travel. Of these newest cases, however, WHO said none had a history of international travel and the type of exposure reported was sexual contact. Meanwhile, genomic sequencing of five available cases showed that the infections were caused by sub-clade IIb MPXV—the clade linked to the multi-country outbreak.All cases were in men aged between 17 and 43, with almost…
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