Sierra Leone has reported its first confirmed case of mpox since the World Health Organization (WHO) issued its highest alert level for the potentially deadly viral disease last year.
According to the National Public Health Agency, the patient is a 27-year-old man from the rural district of the Western Zone, near the capital, Freetown.
The agency announced on social media, “Health teams are actively tracing and investigating to identify potentially exposed persons and to prevent further spread.”
The confirmed case was detected on January 10, but health officials have not specified the variant affecting the patient.
Mpox, caused by a virus from the same family as smallpox, presents with high fever and skin lesions known as vesicles. First identified in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1970, the disease had mostly been confined to a dozen African countries before spreading more widely in 2022, including to regions where the virus had not previously circulated. The WHO raised its highest alert level for mpox in 2024.
In response, Sierra Leonean health authorities have quickly activated containment measures. The infected patient has been isolated, and contacts will be monitored for 21 days. Surveillance efforts have been ramped up in all areas the patient visited.
A public awareness campaign has been launched, and health workers are being provided with protective gear and trained in prevention techniques to curb the spread.
Sierra Leone was one of the hardest-hit countries during the Ebola epidemic, which claimed around 4,000 lives, including nearly seven percent of the nation’s health workers, between 2014 and 2016.
