Addis Ababa, Sep 6 (IANS): A total of 24,851 suspected mpox cases, including 5,549 confirmed cases and 643 deaths, have been reported across the African continent since the beginning of 2024, said Jean Kaseya, director general of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), during an online press briefing on Friday.

Kaseya warned of an "upward trend" in mpox cases across Africa, Xinhua news agency reported.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the epicentre of the health crisis, has reported 20,463 suspected cases, including 635 deaths.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has recently declared the disease a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) and called for a coordinated international response to stop the outbreak of mpox and save lives. The move by the UN health agency followed an outbreak of the viral infection in the DRC and the spread to its neighbouring countries in Africa.

Mpox is a viral illness caused by the monkeypox virus, which has two distinct clades, including clade 1b and clade 2b, and can be transmitted to humans through physical contact with an infectious person, contaminated materials, or infected animals.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda have each reported their first clade 1b cases between July and August, initially circulating in the DRC in 2023 and appearing to be more severe and spread faster than the clade 2b variant, which circulates in West Africa.

The African Union approved $10.4 million in August to support the ongoing efforts to combat the mpox outbreak across Africa.

The governments and health partners, with the support of the WHO, continue scaling up the response, including contact tracing, case management screenings at border entry points, testing capacity strengthening, surveillance, case reporting, and dissemination of information on preventive measures, the OCHA said.