ABIDJAN: Ivory Coast health authorities on Tuesday reported 28 cases of mpox, with one person dying from the virus that has killed hundreds in Democratic Republic of Congo.

The total has risen from six declared cases on August 1.

The National Public Hygiene Institute (INHP) recorded “28 confirmed cases including one death” across the country as of Tuesday, said an INHP doctor Daouda Coulibaly.

The fatal case and some others were recorded in the country’s economic capital Abidjan, the INHP said. Coulibaly said tests were being carried out to identify the strain of the latest mpox cases.

“The situation is no cause for alarm,” Coulibaly said. “We are seeing just the start of a nascent epidemic – there is no upsurge” in cases.

He said monitoring for mpox had been strengthened.

“We have to break the chains of transmission, identify the contacts of cases, isolate them and monitor them.”

Cases identified in the west African country this year were of the subtype that spread during a previous epidemic in 2022, known as clade 2.

A more contagious and deadly subtype known as clade 1b has emerged in DR Congo, Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Sweden.

More than 500 people have died in DR Congo this year from some form of mpox. The WHO last week declared it a global public health emergency.