NYTimes Details Origin Case Of Mpox Virus In Africa

A New York Times (12/7, Nolen) feature detailed the September 2023 case of a five-year-old boy in the Democratic Republic of Congo who contracted mpox. The Times said the case “was the start of a medical mystery that would reveal swift and startling changes in a virus once considered a familiar foe, lead to the declaration of a global public health emergency and [drew] scientists from around the world on a dayslong journey along a muddy, rutted track that is the only way to reach” the town of Kamituga. Fifteen months later, the new strain of the virus has “spread to six other countries through East and southern Africa, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, and individual cases have turned up in Europe, Asia and North America, as well.”