* Geographic Spread: Since 01 January 2024 and as of 20 October 2024, a total of 17 member states across the WHO African region have been affected by mpox, of which, 13 have active transmission, defined as cases being reported in the past six weeks.

* Zimbabwe is newly affected by mpox outbreak as reported on 12 October 2024.

* In week 42, Gabon, Guinea, South Africa and Cameroon have moved to the control phase (meaning that they have not reported a confirmed case in the last 42 days but have in the past 90 days).

Epidemiological summary

Since 1 January 2022, cases of mpox have been reported to WHO from 19 Member States across the WHO African Region. As of 20 October 2024, a total of 10,482 laboratory confirmed cases, including 55 deaths, have been reported to WHO.

In 2024, as of 20 October 2024, 17 countries have documented 8,104 confirmed cases, including 33 deaths. The three countries with most of the cases in 2024 are Democratic Republic of Congo, (n = 6,422), Burundi, (n = 1,189), and Uganda, (n = 152). Thirteen (13) countries are assessed as active: DRC, Burundi, CAR, Congo, Ghana, Nigeria, Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

A significant number of suspected cases, that are clinically compatible with mpox are not tested due to limited diagnostic capacity and never get confirmed. For this reason, suspected cases are also shown in this section. Care should be taken when interpreting these cases, as they are collected according to different case definitions. In some countries, suspected cases that are negative after laboratory test are not removed from case counts