An appeal for US$58.8 million has been launched by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to tackle the rising Monkeypox crisis across six (6) African countries where the most affected are children.
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| Monkeypox |
According to unicef.org:
Though child deaths are currently confined to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the data underscores their vulnerability, as UNICEF works to scale up prevention and response efforts across the region.
The high infection rates and mortality in affected countries, particularly in the DRC, underscore children’s vulnerabilities, exacerbated by limited access to healthcare, sanitation, and hygiene. Malnutrition and other common childhood diseases, as well as displacement, further compound the crisis.
So far, this year, nearly 22,000 suspected and confirmed cases of the rare zoonotic disease have been reported, with 60% of cases in children below the age of 15.
Of the more than 700 deaths related to Mpox, approximately 80% are among children, in underserved communities particularly.
The appeal targets to reach children affected by the outbreak in Central African Republic (CAR), Burundi, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where the clade 1 variant is on the increase, also where children in thousands are at risk of infection, secondary complications, and social stigma.
