South African health authorities have called for heightened public vigilance after three new laboratory-confirmed cases of Mpox were reported in the country over the past week.<\/p>\n
In a statement on Saturday, the Department of Health reported that the first case was identified on February 21 and involved a patient from Gauteng province\u2019s Ekurhuleni area who recently travelled to Uganda.<\/p>\n
He was diagnosed with Grade I Mpox virus, which is currently circulating in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.<\/p>\n
The other two confirmed cases were also from Ekurhuleni and were detected through comprehensive contact tracing efforts led by outbreak response teams.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll three cases are now recovering and self-isolating at home,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n
Symptoms associated with Mpox include a rash lasting two to four weeks, swollen glands, fever, headache, muscle aches, fatigue, and back pain.<\/p>\n
While officials have reassured citizens that there was no immediate cause for alarm, they stressed the need for continued vigilance regarding potential transmission.<\/p>\n
It encouraged people experiencing symptoms \u2013 regardless of travel history or known exposure \u2013 to seek medical attention promptly.<\/p>\n
Residents were reminded to practice good hygiene habits such as regular handwashing with soap or alcohol-based sanitisers before meals and after using restrooms to help curb any potential outbreaks within communities.<\/p>\n
The latest development raises South Africa\u2019s total number of positive Mpox cases since May last year from 25 to 28, including three fatalities.<\/p>\n
These are the first recorded cases for 2025 following an absence of infections since September 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South African health authorities have called for heightened public vigilance after three new laboratory-confirmed cases of Mpox were reported in the country over the past week. In a statement on Saturday, the Department of Health reported that the first case was identified on February 21 and involved a patient from Gauteng province\u2019s Ekurhuleni area who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12978,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":2,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"APA News","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2854,30],"tags":[2394,122],"class_list":["post-15450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-southern-africa","tag-mpox","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}