Mozambique: INS at ‘maximum readiness’ to test suspected mpox cases – Samo Gudo

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Mozambique: INS at ‘maximum readiness’ to test suspected mpox cases – Samo Gudo

2:14 CAT | 27 Aug 2024

FILE - For illustration purposes only. [File photo: Instituto Nacional de Saúde]

Mozambique’s National Health Institute (INS) has told Lusa that it is at ‘maximum laboratory readiness’ to test suspected cases of mpox in the country, believing that it can respond to ‘any demand’.

‘In terms of testing, we are at maximum laboratory readiness. We have the capacity to increase our capacity and our dynamics if necessary, but the number of suspects [is still] low, we don’t think that in the short term that’s our concern,’ said Eduardo Samo Gudo, national director of the INS on Monday.

Samo Gudo pointed to the ‘great’ testing capacity that the country has acquired in recent years, highlighting the construction of public health laboratories across the country that have allowed for the decentralisation of services and a consequent increase in the daily number of tests carried out.

‘We have the capacity to respond to any demand from the point of view of suspected cases (…) we have the capacity to test a very large number of samples,’ he said, recalling that at the peak of Covid-19 the laboratory carried out more than a thousand tests a day.

Without giving specific figures, the official admitted to an increase in the number of suspected mpox cases in Mozambique, following the declaration of a health emergency by the World Health Organisation (WHO), but said that all the cases tested at the INS were negative.

‘It’s good when we have suspects. It means that the surveillance system is on high alert (…) when there are no suspects it’s bad,’ said the director, positively evaluating the testing work.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared the monkeypox (mpox) outbreak in Africa a global health emergency, with confirmed cases among children and adults in more than a dozen countries and a new strain circulating, considered more dangerous than the one detected in 2022.

The alert issued by the WHO has to do with the rapid spread and high mortality of a new strain in Africa and a case in Sweden, of a traveller who was in an area of the African continent where the virus circulates intensely.

This strain is different from the one that caused a violent outbreak in Africa in 2022 and hundreds of cases in Europe, North America and countries in other regions.

In Mozambique, the authorities have not recorded any cases this year, but the head of state, Filipe Nyusi, warned last week that mpox could become ‘another challenge’ to public health in the country, signalling the Ministry of Health’s reinforcement of surveillance measures and actions to prevent the disease.

During the 2022 outbreak, Mozambique recorded only one case of the disease in Maputo province, in the south of the country, according to figures provided by the head of state himself.

For the Mozambique Medical Association, the country’s priority in the event of a possible outbreak with the new strain must first be to educate communities and strengthen institutional capacity.

‘Essentially, these are the two fundamental pillars: preparing the communities and, second priority, strengthening the capacity of our health units because, unfortunately, our health units are not prepared,’ Napoleão Viola, spokesman for the Mozambique Medical Association, told Lusa.

Speaking to the international press in Geneva on Tuesday, the WHO conveyed a message of calm in relation to the mpox outbreak, trying to contain alarmist information and rumours about the mode of transmission.

‘Mpox is not covid (…). Based on what we know, mpox is transmitted mainly through contact with skin that has lesions from the disease, including during sexual intercourse,’ said WHO Europe director Hans Kluge.

This is the second time in two years that the infectious disease has been considered a potential threat to international health, the first alert having been lifted in May, after the spread had been contained and the situation was considered under control.

Source: Lusa