Chickenpox patients lack medicine, food at hospital in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

The hand of a patient with a skin rash caused by the MPOX virus, at the Vijana Hospital Treatment Centre in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, August 30, 2024. Photo by Reuters

Dozens of feverish patients lie on thin mattresses on the floor in a makeshift polio ward in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo as hospital staff struggle with shortages of medicines and space to accommodate the influx of patients.

Congo is the epicenter of the MPOX epidemic. The World Health Organization has declared a global public health emergency. last month.

Vaccines to combat the virus are expected to arrive within days, while Congo's President Felix Tshisekedi said: First $10 million spent to combat the spread of the virus.

But at the hospital in Kavum town, where 900 symptomatic patients have been admitted in the past three months, health workers are desperate for help.

“Every day we run out of medicines,” said head doctor Musole Muramba Mba. “There are many challenges that we have to overcome with local means,” he said, noting that donations from international agencies are falling fast.

Last week, the MPOX ward contained 135 patients, both children and adults, crammed between three large plastic tents pitched on the damp ground with no floor covering.

In underfunded public facilities like Kavumu, relatives usually provide most of the food, but visitors have been banned from the pox ward to avoid contamination. “We have nothing to eat,” said Njigire Rukangira, 32, the mother of a hospitalized young child.

“I beg them for something to bring my children's fever down, but they don't give me anything,” she said, putting honey in her daughter's mouth.

Chris Kashita, head of Congo's pox response team, acknowledged that medicines were in short supply in parts of the vast central African country and that the shipment of donations from the World Bank, including 115 tonnes of medicines, was a priority.

Traditional treatments

Mpox causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions that are usually mild but can be fatal. Children, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems are all at high risk of complications.

Like other mothers at Kavumu's pox ward, Rukangira began improvising traditional remedies to ease her babies' pain. They dipped their fingers in baking soda water or salty lemon juice and popped their children's blisters. Adult patients did the same for themselves.

Most of the cases are from within the town and surrounding villages. Two other temporary infection prevention wards have been set up in the area.

The head of the local health ministry, doctor Serge Mougnau Chikuru, called on the government to continue the vaccination drive.

Kashita said high-risk contacts and nine priority areas have already been identified for the first phase of vaccination.

According to the Ministry of Health, as of August 31, 19,710 suspected cases of MPOX had been reported in Congo so far this year, of which 5,041 were confirmed, with 655 deaths.

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