The Democratic Republic of the Congo today announced the end of a mpox outbreak that lasted two years and is believed to have caused more than 2,200 deaths in the country.

Congolese Minister of Health Roger Kamba told journalists in the capital, Kinshasa, that the government had determined the outbreak was over and no longer constituted a national emergency.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo, a vast country in central Africa, had been the epicentre of a contagious viral outbreak that spread to neighbouring countries in 2024, prompting the World Health Organisation to declare a global health emergency as the disease crossed borders.

The World Health Organisation had ended its global health emergency designation for the disease in September last year.