United States: Vaccines are set to arrive within the days to fight the new strain of the virus while the Congo’s President Felix Tshisekedi has allowed a first 10 million USD disbursement to fight the outbreak.
Crisis at Kavumu Hospital
Hereby at the hospital complex in the town of Kavumu where 900 symptomatic patients have been really taken over in the past three months and also the health workers are dying to get the support.
As the information provided by Reuters, also they said that they run out of the medicine every day and this is specifically from the mouth of the head doctor Musole Mulamba Muva.
“There are many of the challenges we struggle to overcome with our locals he said and that donations from the international organization rapidly dwindled.
Desperate Conditions in Mpox Wards
They have to face a lot of the difficulties as last week there were almost 135 patients in the Mpox ward, chidren and the adults are also combined in this and crammed between three large plastic tents pitched into the damp earth without a floor cover.
Family members who traditionally bring the majority of the food to understaffed centers in such a facility as the Kavumu hospital were forbidden to visit the mpox ward in order to prevent infection.
Struggling Families and Traditional Remedies
”We do not have anything to eat,” responded Nzigire Lukangira, 32 year old mother of a sick child at RMC hospital.
“If we ask to be given something to bring down our children’s temperature, they do not bring anything,” she said while forcing her daughter to take a drop of honey. Cris Kacita, the head of Congo’s mpox response team, agreed that some areas of the sprawling, central African nation were without medicine, and that sending out aid, including 115 tonnes of medicine from the World Bank, was a necessity.
Mpox results in flu-like signs and symptoms and acute skin lesions with pus and although they are mostly nonserious, they can be lethal. It stated that children, pregnant women and or any person whose immune system was compromised were vulnerable to complications. Like other mothers in the Kavumu mpox ward, Lukangira had started looking for traditional ways to handle her baby’s pain.
They used potassium bicarbonate or salty lemon juice that was put on their fingers picking the blisters on their children’s hands. Adult patients did that to themselves in the same manner.
Call for Vaccination and Aid
Majority of them originated from the town, and other neighbouring villages. To this end, two other precarious mpox wards have been established in the area. Local health ministry representative, Dr Serge Munyau Cikuru echoed the government’s call to go for vaccines.
Kacita identified high-risk contacts and nine priorities areas which were considered to implement the first stage of vaccination.
As of August 31 this year, health ministry data show there were 19,710 suspected mpox cases in Congo since the beginning of the year. Among confirmed cases there were 5041 and among fatal cases there number was 655.