BBC African Health Correspondent
More than 500 patients with MPOX have left the clinic in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo during the last month in the middle of the current conflict.
Centers in Africa Centers (Africa CDC), the leading health agency on the continent, said they were concerned because the disappeared patients risked the expansion of very infectious diseases suspected of being killed in 900 people in the DR Congo last year.
Patients escaped from institutions in Gomi and Bukava – two cities descending into chaos while they were seized in recent weeks by the M23 rebels supported in Rwanda.
“We robbed. We lost the equipment. It was a disaster,” said Dr. Samuel Muhindo, in charge of the clinic in Gomi, for the BBC.
MPOX – formerly known as monkeypox – can cause symptoms such as lesions, headaches and fever.
According to the African CDC, from the beginning of this year, there are almost 2,890 cases of MPOX 180 deaths recorded in the country, which has been in the epicentar of several recent epidemics.
Dr. Muhindo described that 128 patients escaped the Goma Mugung Health Center due to the fighting at the end of January.
His healthcare professionals failed to follow them because the paperwork at the clinic was destroyed, he said.
In Bisenngimani, a Gomi hospital that also treats MPOX, robbers have taken medicines and personal protective equipment.
The fires were lit outside the center and when the perpetrators left, the patient’s medical documentation was left on the floor.
The situation is additionally complicated by the decision of the M23 to close the campsite network in Gomi, where there are tens of thousands of people who have been looking for refuge in the fighting in recent years.
They got them 72 hours to leave last weekAlthough M23 later said he encouraged “voluntary return”.
“We are now afraid of epidemic epidemics in the areas where the displaced people have returned,” said Dr. Muhindo.
His fears were echoed by the African CDC.
“Once again, we really call for a truce and an agency to establish a humanitarian corridor to facilitate the continuation of the MPOX intervention,” said Dr. Ngashi Ngongo, MPC manager from Africa CDC.
During the last week, the African CDC says that the number of missing MPOX patients has increased by 100 because the fighting escalates and the rebels take more territories.
Dr. Ngongo added that a new variant of MPOX “high potential for greater transmission” was also discovered in Dr. Cong.
The ability of the country to respond to the disease has interfered with the conflict, between the M23 and the DR Congo’s army, as well as the lack of funds.
The MPOX Mugunga plant, funded by the UN -UNCEF (UNICEF) and UK AID Direct, managed to reopen last week.
But it is already so overwhelmed that there are cases where four or five patients have to share one bed.
“First I fled Mina to Gom when the M23 rebels began to progress from there,” said Sadiki Bichichichi Aristide, a 23-year-old who was treated in Mugunga with two of his children, he told the BBC.
“I started to get sick of ua [camp for displaced people]. It started with my fingers, and then I had lesions, which started cracking on my hands. Neighbors told me to go to Mugung with my children. I left my wife behind me. “
He said he saw “so many” people with MPOX before he arrived in the clinic last week.
Dr Oummani Rouafi, UNICEF GOMA Health Specialist, said the BBC that the only reason for the Mugunga Hospital has reopened because the staff managed to hide their equipment and medicines from the robbers.
But this was not the case in many other centers for treatment that are fully crowded, he said.
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