(19 Sep 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Kamituga, DRC – 4 September 2024
1. Mpox survivor Divine Wisoba walking to her child’s grave
2. Various of Wisoba looking at her child’s grave
3. Wisoba crying at her child’s grave
4. SOUNDBITE (Swahili) Divine Wisoba, mpox survivor and mother:
“I am very sad because of this disease. It is a very bad disease. When my child died, it was so unexpected. Aside from seeing him die, I saw him in pain. It hurt me so much, and besides, I wasn’t convinced that my child was dead. I thought he was still alive, but unfortunately, he was already dead.”
5. Diego Nyago sitting with his 2-year-old son Emile, who is sick with mpox, as doctors tend to him
6. Various of doctors tending to Emile
7. SOUNDBITE (Swahili) Diego Nyago, father of a child hospitalized with mpox:
"I had a lot of ignorance because I didn’t believe that children could get this disease. I thought it was only for adults, and I didn’t know that there were children here getting treated. When I saw children here, I was scared.”
8. Person being treated for mpox
9. Various of Mpox sufferer Lukanga Bugala outside the Kamituga clinic
10. SOUNDBITE (Swahili) Lukanga Bugala, suffering from mpox:
"At first, it was just a simple pimple that appeared on my eye. I started to put eye medicine on it, believing that it would heal. A few days later, several other pimples started to appear. That’s when I was told that it was an illness and I had to come to the hospital."
11. Various of healthcare workers preparing to enter the Kamituga hospital
12. SOUNDBITE (French) Dally Muamba, doctor with Alima NGO:
“The majority of cases are young people, from 14-year-olds to 35-year-old adults. You also have kids under five years old who are unfortunately affected. In the profile of our patients you also have sex workers who are really affected.”
13. Street and shops
14. Dwellings and vegetation
STORYLINE:
Slumped on the ground over a small mound of dirt, Divine Wisoba pulls weeds from her daughter’s grave.
The 1-month-old died from the mpox virus that has been ravaging eastern Congo.
The young mother was too traumatized to attend the funeral, never believing her baby wouldn’t survive.
Visiting the cemetery for the first time, Wisoba, 21, wept into her shirt for the child she lost.
“When my child died, it was so unexpected. Aside from seeing him die, I saw him in pain. It hurt me so much,” she said.
Fear and contagion are spreading in Kamituga, the epicenter of the latest mpox outbreak where a new variant of the virus is infecting people faster and more easily than previous epidemics.
Disease experts say if the virus isn’t brought under control in Kamituga, it’ll expand throughout eastern Congo and into neighboring countries.
Dally Muamba, a doctor with Alima, the NGO that manages the mpox response in the Kamituga general hospital, said that “the majority of cases are young people, from 14-year-olds to 35-year-old adults.”
He added that children under five were also vulnerable to the disease because of their underdeveloped immune systems.
Last month, the World Health Organization declared the mpox outbreak in Congo and 11 other countries in Africa a global health emergency.
The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said there were more than 20,000 suspected cases and over 600 deaths on the continent, with the majority in Congo.
The bustling, remote town of Kamituga is where the outbreak began one year ago and where a new strain of the virus was discovered in January.
Nyago said he thought mpox only affected adults.
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