The World Health Organization says mpox cases in the region of Congo where a new and more infectious variant was first detected appear to be “plateauing,” even as the virus continues to increase in other regions of the country, as well as in Burundi and Uganda.

British health officials say they have identified four cases of the new, more infectious version of mpox that first emerged in Congo, marking the first time the variant has caused a cluster of illness outside of Africa.

Sex workers are among those hardest-hit by the mpox outbreak in eastern Congo's Kamituga town.

The African health agency says that Rwanda has started a vaccination campaign against mpox with 1,000 doses it obtained from Nigeria.

The global vaccine alliance Gavi says it will buy 500,000 doses of vaccine against mpox to fight outbreaks of the disease in African countries.

Authorities in Congo say 50,000 doses of the mpox vaccine from the United States have arrived in the country.

Authorities say a vaccination campaign against mpox in Congo will begin Oct. 2, with workers focusing on the three most affected provinces first.

The head of the World Health Organization believes the ongoing mpox outbreaks in Africa might be stopped in the next six months.

Africa's public health body is seeing a rapid increase in mpox cases, with almost 4,000 reported on the continent in the last week.

Congo has recorded 1,030 of the 1,405 new mpox cases in Africa over the last week.

Congo's health minister says the country will receive the first vaccine doses to address its mpox outbreak next week from the United States.

African leaders will meet in Zimbabwe on Saturday for a scheduled summit of the 16-nation Southern African Development Community.

Kenya and the Central African Republic have declared new outbreaks of mpox as Africa's health officials are racing to contain the spread of the disease in a region lacking vaccines.

A cluster of tarp-covered tents in a grassy lot south of Seattle highlights the strain facing many communities are facing.

The U.N. says a fire at a displacement camp in eastern Congo has destroyed around 50 makeshift tents, leaving dozens of families without shelter.

Scientists say a new form of mpox detected in a mining town in Congo might more easily spread among people.

President Joe Biden's administration is launching a program that will help 50 countries identify and respond to infectious diseases, with the goal of preventing pandemics like the COVID-19 outbreak.

The head of the African Development Bank is calling for an end to loans given in exchange for oil or critical minerals used in smartphones and electric car batteries.

The World Health Organization said it has confirmed sexual transmission of mpox in Congo for the first time as the country experiences its biggest-ever outbreak.

The death toll from flash floods and landslides in eastern Congo has risen beyond 200, with many more people still missing, according to local authorities in the province of South Kivu.

A United Nations-backed panel of investigators alleges that several officials in South Sudan have perpetrated serious human rights violations and should be held accountable for their crimes, in a report released Monday.

A spokesman for the East African regional force says that Ugandan troops took control of Bunagana, a strategic town in eastern Congo that had been in the hands of M23 rebels for more than nine months.

Congo’s former rebel leader jailed by the International Criminal Court, Jean-Pierre Bemba, has been appointed Congo’s Defense Minister and Deputy Prime Minister in a Cabinet reshuffle.

Authorities say rebels in eastern Congo killed at least 19 people and set fire to a health fire and houses.

When Pope Francis arrives in Congo and South Sudan next week, thousands of people will take special note of a gesture more grounded than the sign of the cross.

Congo's army says a suspected extremist attack at a church in the country's east killed at least 10 people and wounded more than three dozen.

Kenyan President William Ruto urged lawmakers not to remove presidential terms limits from the country’s constitution, dismissing comments by a legislator that there should be no such limits on a capable leader.

Ugandan health authorities say a man who died this week has tested positive for the virus that causes Ebola.

The World Health Organization says it is launching a $1.5 billion campaign, hopefully including a new vaccine, to eliminate outbreaks of bacterial meningitis across Africa by 2030.

Africa’s public health agency says the continent of 1.3 billion people still does not have a single dose of the monkeypox vaccine, but “very advanced discussions” are underway with at least two partners.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday rebuked Rwandan authorities over democracy and human rights concerns, saying the central African country may not reach its full potential without opening up political space and protecting freedoms.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he was “concerned” about reports of the detention of an opposition political leader in Congo.

The World Health Organization says that the number of outbreaks of diseases that jumped from animals to humans in Africa has increased by more than 60% in the last decade, a worrying sign the planet could face increased animal-borne diseases like monkeypox, Ebola and coronavirus in the future.

Nigeria has recorded its first death from monkeypox in 2022 while Congo has confirmed nine deaths and 465 cases this year.

Health authorities in Europe, North America, Israel and Australia have identified more than 100 cases of monkeypox in recent days.

The Vatican says Pope Francis is planning to visit Congo and South Sudan in July.

Authorities in eastern Congo have announced an evening curfew and new security checkpoints.

Congolese health authorities have declared an end to the Ebola outbreak in the country's east that had killed at least six people since October.

The World Health Organization says officials have begun vaccinating people in eastern Congo against Ebola, after it was confirmed last week that the disease killed a toddler.

The French government has called on the head of the World Health Organization to uphold his pledge for an “action plan” to combat sexual abuse and exploitation by WHO employees.

A panel commissioned by the World Health Organization has identified more than 80 alleged cases of sex abuse implicating at least 21 WHO staffers during its response to an Ebola outbreak in Congo, making it the biggest-ever sex abuse scandal in U.N. history.

Congo on Monday banned public gatherings for two days in Beni, after the eastern city was hit by two explosions.

Thousands of people are returning to Goma and a surrounding region in eastern Congo hoping to find their homes intact weeks after a volcano erupted, but fearing the worst.

Tens of thousands of people are fleeing the city of Goma in eastern Congo fearing another volcanic eruption by Mount Nyiragongo, which spewed lava near the city last week.

Officials say the volcanic eruption in eastern Congo two days ago has killed has risen to at least 32 people, while residents search for missing loved ones amid destroyed homes on the outskirts of the eastern city of Goma where aftershocks were detected.

Officials and survivors say a volcanic eruption in Congo and the ensuing chaos have killed at least 15 people and destroyed more than 500 homes.

Authorities in Congo say Mount Nyiragongo has erupted for the first time in nearly two decades.

FILE- In this Sunday March 7, 2021 file photo, people walk past an election poster featuring opposition presidential candidate Guy Brice Parfait Kolelas, in downtown Brazzaville, Congo. Kolelas, who was hospitalized with COVID-19 complications on election day, has died, a spokesman said Monday, March 22, 2021. The 61-year-old politician was last seen in a video circulating Saturday on social media in which he told supporters he was fighting death. (AP Photo/Lebon Chansard Ziavoula, File)BRAZZAVILLE – Republic of Congo's top presidential opposition candidate Guy Brice Parfait Kolelas, who was hospitalized with COVID-19 complications on election day, has died, a spokesman said Monday. Republic of Congo, with a population of about 5.4 million people, has had fewer than 10,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began, with 134 confirmed deaths.

Luca Attanasio, Italian ambassador to the Congo, an Italian Carabineri bodyguard and a Congolese driver were killed in the area that is home to myriad rebel groups, according to the Foreign Ministry and local people. The U.N. has said the road had been declared “green” by the U.N. and cleared for travel without security escorts or armored vehicles. The WFP says it is cooperating in the Italian, Congolese and U.N. investigations. Barrow said the U.N. probe would scrutinize the preparatory meetings leading up to the mission itself as well as whether security protocols were followed. “The main focus of the fact-finding mission will be on what security protocols were undertaken, how they were followed and what steps were taken to minimize any sort of risk to any of those who were on this mission,” he said.

In this image taken from video, United Nations peacekeepers guard the area where a U.N. convoy was attacked and the Italian ambassador to Congo killed, in Nyiragongo, North Kivu province, Congo Monday, Feb. 22, 2021. The Italian ambassador to Congo Luca Attanasio, an Italian carabineri police officer and their Congolese driver were killed Monday in an attack on a U.N. convoy in an area that is home to myriad rebel groups, the Foreign Ministry and local people said. (AP Photo/Justin Kabumba)ROME – The Italian ambassador to Congo, an Italian Carabinieri police officer and their Congolese driver were killed Monday when gunmen attacked a U.N. convoy traveling to a school in eastern Congo, the Italian Foreign Ministry and residents said. Eastern Congo is home to myriad rebel groups all vying for control of the mineral-rich Central African nation that is the size of Western Europe. The interior ministry said the provincial authorities of North Kivu were not aware of the presence of the Italian ambassador, which did not allow them to provide him with security measures.

FILE-In this Aug. 12, 2012 file photo, Park rangers patrol in the Virunga National Park near Rumangabo, some 60 kms (40 miles) north of Goma, eastern Congo. Gunmen have killed at least six rangers Sunday Jan. 10, 2021, in the Virunga National Park, the latest attack in the part of eastern Congo that is home to some of the world's last mountain gorillas, officials said Sunday. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay,file)KINSHASA – Gunmen have killed at least six rangers in Virunga National Park, the latest attack in the part of eastern Congo that is home to some of the world's last mountain gorillas, officials said Sunday. In April 2020, an ambush near the Virunga National Park killed 12 rangers and five civilians, and critically injured several others. More than 200 rangers have been killed since Virunga became a national park in 1925, officials say.

U.N peacekeepers soldiers patrol at the entrance of Kangbay prison in Beni, Congo, Tuesday, Oct. 20. 2020, An official in eastern Congo says more than 1,300 inmates have escaped from the central prison in Beni after an attack by rebels of the Allied Democratic Forces. (AP Photo/Al-hadji Kudra Maliro)BENI – More than 1,300 inmates have escaped from the central prison of Beni in eastern Congo after an attack by rebels of the Allied Democratic Forces, the town's mayor said Tuesday. Mayor Modeste Bakwanamaha told The Associated Press that one inmate had died in the attack on Kangbayi prison. The escape comes three years after another attack on the Kangbayi prison in which about 100 inmates had fled and dozens were killed.

Diyabanza was fined 2,000 euros ($2,320) for trying to take a 19th-century African funeral pole from a Paris museum. He streamed the incident online in a protest against colonial-era injustice like the plundering of African art. (AP Photo/Lewis Joly)PARIS – A Congolese activist was fined 2,000 euros ($2,320) on Wednesday for trying to take a 19th-century African funeral pole from a Paris museum in a protest against colonial-era injustice that he streamed online. In the Quai Branly protest, Diyabanza and other activists dislodged the funeral pole from its perch while he gave a livestreamed speech about plundered African art. The presiding judge insisted the trial should focus on the specific funeral pole incident and that his court wasn’t competent to judge France’s colonial era.

And this peace needs justice, truth and reconciliation.”The doctor has a groundswell of support in Bukavu where thousands marched Thursday to demand justice and action from Congo's government and the international community. The report detailed mass killings, sexual violence, attacks on children, and other abuses by rebel groups, foreign armies and Congolese armed forces. In August, Congo President Felix Tshisekedi said that he wants the government to combat the abuses and crimes through justice for past and present crimes. International justice coupled with national jurisdiction could be key “to be able to say simply to all criminals: ‘That’s not accepted. The award was shared with Nadia Murad, a Yazidi woman who was raped by Islamic State militants in Iraq and has become a global advocate for victims of sexual violence.

In this Nov. 14, 2008, file photo, a woman receives a bag of maize meal from the World Food Program in the town of Rutshuru, eastern Congo. The World Food Program chief warned Thursday, Sept. 17, 2020, that millions of people are closer to starvation because of the deadly combination of conflict, climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic and he urged donor nations and billionaires to help feed them and ensure their survival. (AP Photo/Karel Prinsloo)TANZANIA – The World Food Program chief warned Thursday that millions of people are closer to starvation because of the deadly combination of conflict, climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic and he urged donor nations and billionaires to help feed them and ensure their survival. And in Nigeria and South Sudan, millions more people have become food insecure because of the pandemic, he said. He said WFP needs $4.9 billion to feed 30 million people who will die without the program's assistance for a year.

People gather at the scene of a gold mine collapse near the town of Kamituga, South Kivu province, in eastern Congo Friday, Sept. 11, 2020. More than 50 people are dead after landslides collapsed three artisanal gold mines near the town of Kamituga in eastern Congo's South Kivu province on Friday, officials said. (Jeff Mwenyemali/Maisha RDC via AP)KINSHASA – More than 50 people are dead after landslides collapsed three artisanal gold mining wells near the city of Kamituga in eastern Congo’s South Kivu province on Friday, officials said. “The diggers and the transporters of the stones were swallowed up by the waters,” said the Kamituga mayor, Alexandre Bundya. Artisanal mining quarries are often unsafe in eastern Congo and the Kasai region.

The family of Congolese independence icon Patrice Lumumba will soon receive the only known remains of the assassinated leader, a tooth removed after his death by a Belgium man whose family apparently held on to it for nearly 60 years, the federal prosecutor's office in Belgium announced on Thursday, Sept. 10, 2020. (AP Photo, File)BRUSSELS The family of Congolese independence icon Patrice Lumumba will soon receive the only known remains of the assassinated leader, a tooth removed after his death by a Belgium man whose family apparently held on to it for nearly 60 years. If such a test had been done it would have destroyed the tooth itself, he said. A Belgian parliamentary probe later determined that the government was morally responsible for Lumumbas death. However, Belgian authorities say they only have recovered one tooth, which will soon be returned to his family.

FILE - In this June 30, 1961 file photo, Congo celebrates the first anniversary of independence from Belgium with a large military parade in Leopoldville, the capital before it was later renamed in 1966 to Kinshasa, in Congo. On Tuesday, June 30, 2020 Congo is marking the 60th anniversary of achieving independence from the colonial rule of Belgium. (AP Photo/Horst Faas, File)KINSHASA Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi vowed to root out the corruption and impunity that has hindered the country since its independence from Belgium as the nation marked its 60th anniversary amid a global reckoning over racial inequality. After independence in 1960, Congo soon fell under the repressive rule of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko who ruled for 32 years. Education, employment, health, infrastructure nothing works because of the poor management and mediocrity of the Congolese political class, Lutunu said.

In this June 10, 2020, photo, a statue of Belgium's King Leopold II is smeared with paint and graffiti in the center of Brussels. The protests sweeping the world after George Floyd's death in the U.S. have added fuel to a movement to confront Europe's role in the slave trade and its colonial past. On Wednesday, an internet petition to rid the capital, Brussels, of any Leopold statue swept past 70,000 signatures. Leopold ruled Congo as a fiefdom, forcing many of its people into slavery to extract resources for his personal profit. Museum Director Guido Gryseels fully understands the challenges and the sensitivities, especially after a Leopold statue was defaced in the gardens outside the museum last week.