CAPE TOWN - The Western Cape has been identified as a hotspot area for the recent Mpox outbreak.
15 of the 18 cases reported countrywide are in that province and most of those are in Cape Town.
This has led to the provincial health department strengthening its response.
The health department’s Ednah Baloyi Mpox is infectious.
“We are working very hard to make sure that those two clusters are, or rather the contacts that were involved in that exposure event are followed up, tested, and treated timeously when they're found to be Mpox positive.
“There were two events that, exposure events that basically, you know, did lead to these Mpox cases. So you would understand that Mpox is quite infectious. When you have one person that is in close contact with a group of people, it can actually result in quite a lot of cases.
“So unfortunately, in these two clusters that we identified, there was a positive case, there were positive cases, and unfortunately, it led to the spread of the disease among those that attended those two events."