Response to virus made harder by lack of knowledge and humanitarian crisis that has forced people into crowded displacement camps
First, liquid-filled blisters developed on three-year-old Marceline Désiré’s back. Then about two weeks later, they appeared on her younger brother Jordan’s body, starting from his neck and then spreading to his back. The two children spent weeks in hospital until they recovered.
As Marceline sat on the ground inside their tarpaulin shelter at the Mudja displacement camp in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on Tuesday, Jordan in the arms of their mother, Bambire Rwanika, next to her, lesions and scars caused by mpox were still visible, especially on Marceline.