The Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) says the continent recorded improved control of infectious disease outbreaks in 2025, despite rising public health threats.

Yap Boum, incident manager for health emergencies at Africa CDC, said this on Thursday during the continent’s virtual weekly press briefing.

Mr Boum said coordinated responses, strengthened surveillance, and expanded vaccination efforts helped the African countries contain several high-risk outbreaks compared to 2024.

According to him, major Ebola outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda were successfully brought under control in 2025.

He also said the 16th Ebola outbreak in the DRC was officially declared over on December 1, following 42 days without new cases after the recovery of the last confirmed patient.

Mr Boum noted that the outbreak response recorded over 97 per cent contact follow-up, alongside intensified vaccination, surveillance at points of entry, and cross-border coordination.

He also said that Uganda’s Sudan Ebola Virus Disease outbreak, confirmed in January, was contained within 86 days, recording 14 cumulative cases and four deaths.

On Mpox, he said the continent recorded a sharp decline in confirmed cases in the second half of the year.

“Over the last six weeks, confirmed mpox cases declined from a peak six-week average of 1,442 to 199 cases, representing an 86 per cent reduction,” he said.

He added that more than five million doses of mpox vaccines had been delivered to 16 countries, with over 1.95 million people vaccinated with at least one dose across Africa.

Mr Boum said that despite the progress, Africa continued to face serious health threats, particularly from cholera, diphtheria, and viral haemorrhagic fevers.

The Africa CDC official revealed that cholera remained the deadliest outbreak in 2025, with more than 317,000 cases and over 7,200 deaths reported across 25 member states.

According to him, South Sudan, Sudan, the DRC, Angola, and Nigeria accounted for nearly 88 per cent of all cholera cases recorded on the continent during the year.

He also expressed concern over the resurgence of diphtheria, an entirely vaccine-preventable disease, which recorded more than 18,000 cases and 874 deaths across 10 African countries in 2025.

Mr Boum stressed the need for African countries to shift from reactive outbreak response to preventive public health strategies, including strengthening routine immunisation, expanding community engagement, and scaling up local vaccine manufacturing.

He highlighted the Incident Management Support Team (IMST) as a key coordination mechanism that improved collaboration among member states, partners, and global health institutions during health emergencies.

Mr Boum said Africa CDC would prioritise preventive preparedness in 2026, with a focus on accelerating cholera elimination by 2030, transitioning Mpox into routine surveillance, and strengthening responses to emerging viral haemorrhagic fevers.

(NAN)