Mpox Is Spreading in Congo’s Capital, Threatening Global Efforts to Contain the Virus
Our reporter went to Congo, where the mpox epidemic has reached the teeming capital, infecting children and their mothers, who sell sex to survive.
Stephanie Nolen reported from Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and from the provinces of North and South Kivu in the east of the country.
Mireille Efonge got sick a few months ago, with a fever and painful blisters on her groin. She became too weak to move, so neighbors carried her to a health center with walls of plastic sheeting in Pakadjuma, a crowded, poor community in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
There, a nurse called an ambulance to take her to a hospital. Soon lesions broke out on her head and the rest of her body, each one a hard nub of throbbing pain.
This was back in August, when the mpox virus — closely related to smallpox — was still almost unknown in Kinshasa, a city of 17 million people.
