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STORY: Twelve-year-old Sumaya Hatungimana of Burundi is one of the lucky ones.The fading scars on her face, hands and feet mark her recovery from Mpox, which has swept through sub-Saharan Africa with alarming speed.She described her ordeal to Reuters:”I started feeling very cold, then my head began to hurt so much that even medicine could not ease the headache. My throat hurt as well so I took more medicine, but I did not seem to get better. I decided to tell my mother that my fever was not going away. My head hurt, my throat hurt and I could not swallow any food because it was so painful.”Her father, Omar Kagoma, watched helplessly as both his daughter and son battled the disease.”I was afraid when I saw my children suffering because I had already seen on social media how people suffer, that’s why I decided to take them to the hospital. God has helped us. You see here behind me my children playing with others without any problem.”Burundi has emerged as a significant mpox hotspot in the region, second only to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in recorded cases.Olivier Nijimbere is Burundi’s health ministry spokesman.”We have already recorded 171 confirmed cases with the laboratories, which are currently being treated in various hospitals in the country.”The outbreak has exposed a stark inequity in global health resources, as two Mpox vaccines are widely available in at least 70 countries outside Africa.Meanwhile, African nations are struggling to access the life-saving vaccines due to financial constraints.The World Health Organization has designated the outbreak a public health emergency. But regulatory hurdles and competing health priorities have slowed vaccine approval and distribution processes in many African nations.
