On the ground: Report from epicentre of Mpox outbreak in DR Congo

FRANCE 24 English

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00:00In this tent at Kvumu Hospital in the province of South Kivu in eastern Congo, mothers gather

00:07exhausted and worried.

00:08Nzigire watches over her four children, all of whom have been infected by Mpox.

00:14I'm taking care of my children infected with this disease.

00:18They have skin lesions.

00:19They were admitted here almost dead and now I'm watching over them.

00:23I haven't seen any real changes in their health yet.

00:26South Kivu is the epicentre of the Mpox epidemic in Congo, with over 5,000 cases detected in

00:32the province since January.

00:35Situation is really serious.

00:38We are really overwhelmed because we have a small capacity and we are very busy.

00:44In the neighbouring province of North Kivu, Mpox cases are also multiplying.

00:48Dr. Bazubi is carrying out a series of hospital consultations.

00:53She shows signs of Mpox, like blistering skin rashes.

00:59Patients are put into isolation and then treated.

01:01An average of 10 new cases arrive every day, mainly children from overcrowded displacement

01:06camps.

01:08It's quite a worrying situation.

01:11We've seen that the primary means of transmission is direct contact.

01:16So when you have a large number of people in a household in a limited space, you run

01:21the risk of seeing the disease spread rapidly.

01:26To combat the epidemic, awareness campaigns have been launched in several displacement

01:30camps around the city of Goma.

01:33We can all get sick.

01:34If I'm infected, I can infect you and you can infect others.

01:38Health workers go over and over protective measures to take against infection, such as

01:42washing hands regularly and avoiding physical contact.

01:45But the measures are difficult to apply in these conditions.

01:48Here the only hope is the arrival of Mpox vaccines.

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