Throughout the 21st century, there’s been a multitude of epidemics: the ‘02-’04 SARS outbreak, the swine flu pandemic, the West African Ebola epidemic, COVID-19, and more. The one most people alive today experienced was COVID-19. It lasted from late 2019—when a group of patients in Wuhan, China showed abnormal pneumonia-like symptoms—to July 2021 when the FDA approved Pfizer’s vaccine, ending in a total death toll of around 700 million.
The 2002 SARS outbreak infected over 8,000 people and killed 774. Since these outbreaks, world healthcare has drastically changed. The American Hospital Association recently published a report showing hospitals are taking better care of patients and taking more quality measures to ensure patient safety. According to the American Academy of Family Physicians, COVID has pushed the healthcare system beyond what the world has seen before. Many of these issues were caused by shortages of supplies, staff, and materials.
In 2018, according to Healthcare Finance News, there were over 16 million healthcare workers in the U.S., whereas in 2024, there are currently 22 million. In addition to more health workers, there has also been an increase in Mpox cases worldwide. The virus has two variations: clade I and clade II. Furthermore, each clade has its own subclades: clade Ia, clade Ib, and clade IIb. A clade is a division of species or subspecies, where, in this case, Mpox would be the origin and the subgenres would be the clades. The Mpox virus has infected most of the globe, but it is most commonly found in Western and Central Africa. Although there is a vaccine for the virus, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared it a global concern in 2022 when clade II began circulating. Shortly after, Mpox spread to other countries, which led to 90,000 cases worldwide and 32,000 in the United States of America.
The disease isn’t as prominent as COVID-19 or the Spanish flu; it’s similar to the common cold or pneumonia in severity and is rarely deadly. The CDC stated that the risk for the public is low, but to prevent catching the virus, the best things to do are avoid mouth-to-mouth contact, avoid skin contact, and avoid prolonged close proximity.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) also experienced an outbreak of an unknown disease (disease X) near the end of November. Officials say patients are experiencing flu-like symptoms such as fevers, headaches, coughs, anemia, and breathing difficulties. Most of the deaths from this disease are teenagers between 15 and 18. Teams are currently working on this disease in the Kwongo Province where it’s most common, specifically the Panzi health zone.
The Panzi health zone is relatively remote, taking around two days to get there; it’s 435 miles from the capital city Kinshasa. According to the African head of the CDC, Jean Kaseya, it appears to be a respiratory disease, though the lab results have yet to come in. Additionally, the lab tests were sent around 300 miles away to Kikwit due to the lack of testing capacity in the area.
The disease’s mortality rates are high, but officials say it does not appear to be spreading exponentially as of now.
It doesn’t seem to pose much of a threat around the globe, but for the DRC, most of the residents experience malnutrition (about 40%), which makes people more susceptible to disease. The authorities are extremely behind on the research due to being notified of the disease six weeks after the outbreak, but the DRC is urging its citizens to remain calm and vigilant during the outbreak.
Mpox and disease X have high impacts on Africa, whereas COVID-19 had a lower impact on Africa. The common trend between Mpox, COVID-19, and disease X seems to show signs of respiratory issues, headaches, fevers, and exhaustion. While all of these diseases have varying degrees of severity, they all have a highly negative impact on different areas around the globe.
