Uganda has confirmed that a prison inmate who had been remanded on a charge of murder has contracted mpox in a central area that is the epicentre of the outbreak.
"We recorded one confirmed case of mpox in one of our prisons and the patient has been isolated and containment measures have been put in place," Uganda Prisons spokesman Frank Baine told AFP.
Further, Baine said the male inmate could have contracted the disease before he was remanded in the prison in the town of Nakasongola in central Uganda.
According to the Ministry of Health, twenty-one mpox cases have been reported nationwide in the Nakasongola area, out of 41, as of October 7.
More than 34,000 cases have been recorded in 16 countries in Africa since the new epidemic broke out, the African Union's health watchdog, Africa CDC, said earlier this month.
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The disease, originally named monkeypox, spreads through close physical contact with infected people or animals, causing fever, muscle pains and painful skin lesions.
