At least four new countries in East Africa — Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda — have reported their first cases of smallpox. Côte d'Ivoire has recorded an outbreak, but of a different type, while South Africa has confirmed two more cases.
Between 2022 and 2024, cases were also identified outside Africa, with 33,000 cases in the United States, 11,000 in Brazil, 8,000 in Spain, and 4,200 in France.
Men are the main victims, accounting for 96% of cases. According to the World Health Organization, the most common way the disease is transmitted is through sexual contact. Half of the confirmed cases were recorded in people carrying the virus. HIVBut the agency insists this is not the only way and fears stigmatizing those affected.
The World Health Organization also listed the main symptoms of the disease, including rash, fever, and rash on the genitals.
Smallpox was first discovered in humans in 1970, in the former Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). At that time, it was a subtype 1 outbreak, and the current variant is a mutation of this original virus, and is more deadly.
The WHO was already on alert when a global pandemic of subtype 2 spread in 2022 to a hundred countries where the disease was not endemic, mainly affecting gay and bisexual men. The alert was removed in May 2023.
