Staff at medical clinic in Goma treat mpox patients as disease spreads in eastern DRCongo

Goma has for decades been embroiled in the ongoing deadly conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Now, the city in the east of the African nation, is ground zero in the latest outbreak of mpox, formerly known as monkeypox.

Staff at the Nyiragongo General Hospital on the outskirts of Goma have seen an increase in the number of patients with the disease.

The current variant spreading in the country has worrying characteristics and appears to be more deadly than its predecessors.

Patient Nyota Mukobelwa said she was taken to a hospital in a jeep owned by Doctors Without Borders after she experienced symptoms of the disease.

Sitting on a bed in tents that make up an mpox treatment area, isolated from the rest of the hospital, she described what she felt after contracting mpox.

“At first I felt a headache, fever, muscle pain and pain in my groin. After spots started to appear on me, I thought it must be an infection," she said.

Doctors and nurses said most of the patients showing up are children.

Dr. Pierre Olivier Ngadjole, health advisor for MEDAIR DRC, the organization that runs the mpox treatment site, said that 75% of the mpox patients in the clinic were children under ten years old.

"It should also be noted that 70% of these cases that come here are cases that come from the IDP camps," he added.

Nurse Trésor Basubi was worried as the number of people being admitted is increasing.

Due to conflict in much of the regions surrounding Goma, the city is overwhelmed with internally displaced people who seek shelter in the many refugee camps around the city and its outskirts.

In 2022, there were outbreaks in more than 70 countries across the world that had not previously reported mpox, leading WHO to also declare an emergency that lasted until mid-2023.

It was largely shut down by vaccines and treatments in rich countries, but few doses were made available in Africa, and still haven't been.

This year, scientists reported a new form of mpox that could be more infectious and may kill up to 10% of infected people in a mining town in eastern Congo, around 270 kilometers south of Goma.

Congo's numbers have now rocketed and at least 13 African countries have reported new mpox outbreaks, four of them for the first time.

The outbreaks in those four countries — Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda — have been linked to Congo's.

Furaha Elisabeth came to the clinic to get treatment for her child who was sick with mpox.

“We have been shown images on the phone and on TV of people who are suffering from the same illness. I am scared, and I am so worried,” she said.