Mozambique has confirmed 11 mpox cases in the past 48 hours, prompting an emergency health response in several northern districts, officials said on Tuesday.
The bulk of infections are in Niassa Province, where five people tested positive “within just a few hours,” Governor Elina Massengele told reporters. “Numbers keep climbing and dozens more samples are awaiting results. Mpox is highly transmissible, so we must act quickly,” she warned.
The Health Ministry has dispatched an interdisciplinary team from the National Directorate of Public Health and the National Institute of Health to Niassa. The task force will oversee treatment, trace and quarantine contacts, bolster surveillance and step up community outreach, Massengele added.
No deaths have been reported. Mozambique last saw mpox infections during a 2022 outbreak in the capital, Maputo.
Mpox, a zoonotic viral disease first detected in humans in 1970 in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, was re‑designated a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by the World Health Organization on Aug. 14 last year amid rising cases of the more severe Clade I strain across Central Africa.