DR Congo declares end of mpox outbreak after two years

WAM
03 Apr 2026, 05:31 GMT+10

KINSHASA, 3rd April, 2026 (WAM) -- The Democratic Republic of the Congo today announced the end of a mpox outbreak that lasted two years and is believed to have caused more than 2,200 deaths in the country.

Congolese Minister of Health Roger Kamba told journalists in the capital, Kinshasa, that the government had determined the outbreak was over and no longer constituted a national emergency.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo, a vast country in central Africa, had been the epicentre of a contagious viral outbreak that spread to neighbouring countries in 2024, prompting the World Health Organisation to declare a global health emergency as the disease crossed borders.

The World Health Organisation had ended its global health emergency designation for the disease in September last year.

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said there were more than 161,000 suspected cases of mpox in the Democratic Republic of the Congo during the outbreak between 2024 and this year, with around 37,000 cases confirmed through testing.

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