NAIROBI, Kenya: A total of 18,737 suspected or confirmed cases of mpox were reported in Africa since the beginning of the year, including 1,200 cases in one week alone, the African Union health agency said Saturday.
The figure reflects cases of all strains of the virus, not specifically the new more deadly and more transmissible Clade 1b which prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday to declare an international health emergency — the agency’s highest alert.
To date, 3,101 confirmed and 15,636 suspected cases have been reported from 12 African Union member states, resulting in 541 deaths — a fatality rate of 2.89 percent, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a statement.
The hardest hit country, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where the new Clade 1b strain was first detected in September 2023, has reported 1,005 cases (222 confirmed, 783 suspected) and 24 deaths in one week.
All 26 provinces in the DRC, home to some 100 million people, have reported cases.
Neighbouring Burundi reported 173 cases — 39 confirmed and 134 suspected — which marks a rise of 75 percent in one week.
More cases have been reported since the beginning of the year than all of 2023, which saw a total of 14,383 cases, according to the Africa CDC.
The first cases of the mpox outside of Africa were recorded this week, in Sweden and Pakistan.
The WHO will soon publish its first recommendations by its emergency committee and, along with NGOs, has also called for the ramping up of vaccine production.
Mpox is a viral disease that can spread from animals to humans, but also human-to-human through sexual or close physical contact. Symptoms include fever, muscular aches and large boil-like skin lesions
The Clade 1b causes skin eruptions all over the body, whereas previous variants caused localized lesions around the mouth, face or genitals.
The disease, formerly known as monkeypox, was first detected in humans in the DRC in 1970.
The deadlier Clade 1 has been endemic in the Congo Basin in central Africa for decades.
More than 18,700 mpox cases detected in Africa since January: health agency
https://arab.news/9kvje
More than 18,700 mpox cases detected in Africa since January: health agency
- To date, 3,101 confirmed and 15,636 suspected cases have been reported from 12 African Union member state
- The hardest hit country is the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where the new Clade 1b strain was first detected in September 2023
Trump sues the BBC for defamation over editing of January 6 speech, seeks up to $10 billion in damages
- A BBC spokesperson told Reuters earlier on Monday that it had “no further contact from President Trump’s lawyers at this point
- The BBC is funded through a mandatory license fee on all TV viewers, which UK lawyers say could make any payout to Trump politically fraught
WASHING: President Donald Trump sued the BBC on Monday for defamation over edited clips of a speech that made it appear he directed supporters to storm the US Capitol, opening an international front in his fight against media coverage he deems untrue or unfair. Trump accused Britain’s publicly owned broadcaster of defaming him by splicing together parts of a January 6, 2021 speech, including one section where he told supporters to march on the Capitol and another where he said “fight like hell.” It omitted a section in which he called for peaceful protest.
Trump’s lawsuit alleges the BBC defamed him and violated a Florida law that bars deceptive and unfair trade practices. He is seeking $5 billion in damages for each of the lawsuit’s two counts. The BBC has apologized to Trump, admitted an error of judgment and acknowledged that the edit gave the mistaken impression that he had made a direct call for violent action. But it has said there is no legal basis to sue.
Trump, in his lawsuit filed Monday in Miami federal court, said the BBC despite its apology “has made no showing of actual remorse for its wrongdoing nor meaningful institutional changes to prevent future journalistic abuses.”
The BBC is funded through a mandatory license fee on all TV viewers, which UK lawyers say could make any payout to Trump politically fraught.
A spokesman for Trump’s legal team said in a statement the BBC “has a long pattern of deceiving its audience in coverage of President Trump, all in service of its own leftist political agenda.”
A BBC spokesperson told Reuters earlier on Monday that it had “no further contact from President Trump’s lawyers at this point. Our position remains the same.” The broadcaster did not immediately respond to a request for comment after the lawsuit was filed.
CRISIS LED TO RESIGNATIONS
Facing one of the biggest crises in its 103-year history, the BBC has said it has no plans to rebroadcast the documentary on any of its platforms.
The dispute over the clip, featured on the BBC’s “Panorama” documentary show shortly before the 2024 presidential election, sparked a public relations crisis for the broadcaster, leading to the resignations of its two most senior officials.
Trump’s lawyers say the BBC caused him overwhelming reputational and financial harm.
The documentary drew scrutiny after the leak of a BBC memo by an external standards adviser that raised concerns about how it was edited, part of a wider investigation of political bias at the publicly funded broadcaster.
The documentary was not broadcast in the United States.
Trump may have sued in the US because defamation claims in Britain must be brought within a year of publication, a window that has closed for the “Panorama” episode.
To overcome the US Constitution’s legal protections for free speech and the press, Trump will need to prove not only that the edit was false and defamatory but also that the BBC knowingly misled viewers or acted recklessly.
The broadcaster could argue that the documentary was substantially true and its editing decisions did not create a false impression, legal experts said. It could also claim the program did not damage Trump’s reputation.
Other media have settled with Trump, including CBS and ABC when Trump sued them following his comeback win in the November 2024 election.
Trump has filed lawsuits against the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and a newspaper in Iowa, all three of which have denied wrongdoing. The attack on the US Capitol in January 2021 was aimed at blocking Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s presidential win over Trump in the 2020 US election.
