The situation is more complicated than usual given the shortage of vaccines to face a substantial increase of cases, as is likely to happen due to the conditions created by the torrid summer. This explains the promptness with which the health entities of both countries were mobilized.

The first cry of alarm in this capital was heard hours after the detection at a border post in southern Kenya of an infected passenger traveling between Uganda and Rwanda.

In the case of Central Africa, the health alarm dates back to last Monday after the dissemination of an official statement admitting that the disease is spreading towards Bangui, the country’s capital.

We are very concerned about the cases of smallpox that are ravaging Region 7 of the country,” the Central African Minister of Health, Pierre Somsé, declared to the press.

The fears of health officials in both nations are justified after the disease spread to more than a hundred countries just two years ago, in 2022, and has been endemic in vast areas of central and West Africa for decades.

Monkeypox is caused by a virus that lodges in wild animals and sometimes passes to humans with the consequent danger of mass contagion.

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