The survival of the disease in Congo is due to the consumption of dead monkeys and rodents, said Dr. alongo.

“The residents go into the forest and collect the corpses of monkeys, bats and rodents that are the reservoirs of monkeypox,” the official added, urging people with monkeypox symptoms to visit a health center to isolate themselves.

Nigeria, meanwhile, recorded its first death from monkeypox this year in a patient with underlying medical conditions, the disease control agency said Sunday.

The Nigeria Center for Disease Control and Prevention has announced that by 2022 it has confirmed 21 of 66 suspected cases of the disease, which is mostly endemic in Nigeria and other parts of West and Central Africa.

“The death was reported in a 40-year-old patient with underlying comorbidities and immunosuppressive medications,” the Nigerian CDC said.

Nigeria has not had an outbreak of monkeypox since September 2017, but it continues to report sporadic cases. Since then, at least 247 have been confirmed in 22 of the 36 states, with a 3.6% death rate, the Bureau of Disease Control said.

A spike in the number of reported cases of monkeypox in Europe and the US has raised concerns among those countries, many of whom haven’t registered a single case of the disease for years. More than 250 cases of the disease have been reported in more than 20 countries that are usually not known for outbreaks, according to the World Health Organization.

Monkeypox has not previously caused widespread outbreaks outside of Africa, where it is endemic.

One of the new cases in the UK was registered within a man-days of its arrival from Nigeria on 4 May. Nigeria has recorded six confirmed cases of the disease that the British citizen left the country.

dr. Ifedayo Adetifa, head of the country’s Center for Disease Control, told The Associated Press that there is no indication that the British citizen has contracted the disease in Nigeria and the country remains prepared to respond to a monkeypox outbreak.

“The biggest challenge you have with a disease like monkey pox is that it’s uncommon and the public perceived risk of how dangerous this condition is has been very low…so…so we’ve provided awareness training and advocacy training to help improve it.” raise awareness of health professionals,” said Adetifa.

Kamale message from Kinshasa, Congo.