Far more diagnostic kits, treatments and vaccines need to be shipped to Africa to respond adequately to the outbreak of a new strain of the mpox virus there, an official of the Red Cross and Red Crescent humanitarian network said on Friday.

"There is a critical shortage of testing, treatment and vaccines across the continent. These shortages are severely hampering the ability to contain the outbreak," Bronwyn Nichol of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said in a media call on Friday.

  - Reuters