Scaling up mpox outbreak response in Sierra Leone

Freetown ‒ Sierra Leone is deploying a unfold of measures to govern and quit an outbreak of mpox in which 20 conditions must this point been reported since the disease became confirmed on 13 January 2025.

The National Public Health Company, with support from companions, including World Health Organization (WHO), is stepping up disease surveillance to mercurial detect conditions, provide care and forestall further unfold of infection. With technical and logistical support from WHO, emergency public clinical examiners are enhancing active case search and investigation for a more gleaming outbreak response.

Sierra Leone has been reinforcing preparedness and ability to solution public properly being emergencies in present years. In November 2024, WHO supported the training of 65 clinical examiners and laboratory personnel in diagnostic procedures and sample collection. Additionally, 160 clinical examiners were trained on integrated technique covering surveillance, case management, infection prevention and support a watch on, laboratory practices, and possibility dialog and neighborhood engagement. This proactive technique ensured frontline workers were appealing to support a watch on the mpox outbreak from the onset.

To further back curb the unfold of the disease, a consignment of 61 300 vaccine doses is anticipated to be delivered in the coming weeks in Sierra Leone due to the support from WHO and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, Africa Facilities for Illness Regulate and Prevention and UNICEF. These organizations will quilt operational costs for the vaccination targeting at-possibility of us, including clinical examiners. Additionally, efforts, coordinated by companions, including UNICEF, are underway to increase public consciousness about the disease in addition to succor preventive measures and the importance of seeking health center treatment.

WHO has already delivered over US$ 38 000 worth of critical laboratory supplies and non-public protecting equipment, including gloves, robes, aprons, face shields, biohazard ruin baggage, and infrared thermometers. Supplies also included genomics sequencing reagents, PCR kits for 400 checks, GeneXpert cartridges for 50 checks, and genomic sequencing kits for forty five checks.

Clinical care is also being reinforced. WHO has procured remedy kits for 20 inpatients and 180 outpatients and is providing technical abilities to clinicians and other responders by assisting in the planning of response actions and developing case management guidelines and training programmes.

“In spite of various challenges, WHO has efficiently mobilized resources in any appreciate ranges to bring foremost commodities, including vaccines,” says Dr George Ameh, WHO Consultant in Sierra Leone. “We can continue to support the country to bring this present outbreak below support a watch on.”

An upsurge of mpox (formerly identified as monkeypox) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and its unfold to neighbouring countries became declared a public properly being emergency of international misfortune on 14 August 2024. At total of twenty-two countries in the African state have reported conditions since 2024, of which 12 right now have active outbreaks.

WHO and associate organizations are working closely with the affected countries to contain these outbreaks. According to Professor Foday Sahr, the Director of Sierra Leone’s National Public Health Company, the support by WHO “continues to make certain our ministry and agency succeed in safeguarding the properly being of our voters.”

Mpox is a viral disease induced by an orthopoxvirus. It spreads mainly thru discontinuance contact with somebody who has mpox, causing a painful rash, enlarged lymph nodes, and fever. In extreme conditions, the disease will also be lethal.