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Burundi treats ‘sick and scared’ mpox patients amid rising cases worldwide
- Cases of mpox in East Africa have surged, with Burundi confirming 171 cases earlier this week in ‘hot zones’ on its borders
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“I felt very sick and scared, I couldn’t even walk any more,” said mpox patient Samuel Nduwimana in Burundi’s economic capital Bujumbura, one of around 170 confirmed cases in the small African country.
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Talking to journalists from an isolation ward in the city’s King Khaled Teaching Hospital, Nduwimana’s face and upper body are scattered with painful-looking marks.
“I started to lose my appetite, I had a fever and I felt a small pimple on my genitals that hurt a lot,” he said, describing the onset of symptoms, which he hoped was malaria.
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“I didn’t even know what I was suffering from,” said Nduwimana, but as his conditions worsened he eventually sought treatment.
Mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, is caused by a virus transmitted to humans by infected animals that can also be passed between humans through close physical contact.
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