Congo-Kinshasa: DR Congo Fighting Forces Hundreds of Mpox Patients to Leave Treatment Centres

Monrovia — More than 600 people infected with mpox left treatment centers in the Democratic Republic of Congo due to fighting in the eastern part of the country, the African Centers for Disease Control said during an online briefing on the status of the disease on March 6. The continental health body said, although more than 150 of those who ran away returned in the eastern city of Bukavu – following a relative improvement in security – they still cannot account for hundreds more.

The country is the epicenter of the latest disease outbreak in the region, which the Africa CDC declared in 2024 a “public health emergency of international concern”. During the briefing, however, the head of the Incident Management Team in the DR Congo, Ngashi Ngongo, said they were witnessing a decline in the trend of confirmed cases in the country, which he attributed to insecurity that has led to “low testing”.

Ngongo lauded the country’s progress on vaccination against the disease, noting that more than 300,000 Congolese have so far been vaccinated in the Kinshasa area. He also reported a significant drop in the number of mpox infections amongst healthcare workers – by more than 50% – which he said is as a result of increased training and new prevention mechanisms.

There have been more than 24,000 cases of mpox “notified” continent-wide in 2025 with about 6,000 having being confirmed for the disease. Angola reported two new cases of mpox after more than 8 weeks of no confirmed case in the country. 15 of the 22 countries with mpox still have “active cases” of the disease. In the eighth week of reporting in 2025, more than 600 cases were confirmed from across the 11 countries that “notified”.

The Africa CDC official expressed concern that several new cases of Ebola were confirmed in Uganda, after about three weeks of no cases reported in the country. The Ugandan ministry of health in January announced a new outbreak of the disease there, which was later confirmed to be the Sudan species. The African health watchdog has said there was no direct epidemiological link between the new cluster with the last cluster which resulted in nine cases.

On Marburg, Tanzania is still counting down to declaring that outbreak over, with no new cases reported, the Africa CDC said.