CONAKRY, Guinea (AFP) – The number of mpox cases in Guinea since an outbreak was first detected has passed 200, health officials told AFP Friday, with several nearby countries witnessing recent increases in infections.

Last month World Health Organisation director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the virus remains an international health emergency amid the rise in west Africa.

Guinea has now recorded 206 total cases, spokesman Sory Keira of the National Agency for Health Security (ANSS) told AFP.

The outbreak, which began last September, includes one death and 77 hospitalisations.

Mpox is caused by a virus from the same family as smallpox. It can be transmitted to humans by infected animals but can also be passed between people through close physical contact.

The disease, which was first detected in humans in 1970 in the DR Congo, causes fever, muscular aches and large boil-like skin lesions, and can be deadly.

It has two subtypes: clade 1 and clade 2.

Long endemic in central Africa, the virus gained international prominence in May 2022 when clade 2 spread around the world, mostly affecting gay and bisexual men.

WHO in June said the disease would remain an international emergency “based on the continuing rise in the number of cases, including a recent increase in West Africa, and likely ongoing undetected transmission in some countries beyond the African continent.”

From January to late May of this year, Sierra Leone recorded a total of 3,350 cases, including 16 deaths.

Liberia had some 71 active cases in early June, according to its National Public Health Institute.

Thousands of cases have also been recorded this year across DR Congo, Uganda and Burundi, according to WHO.