A patient with a severe form of the mpox is treated at the Kavumu Hospital, 30km north of Bukavu in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. AFP
A patient with a severe form of the mpox is treated at the Kavumu Hospital, 30km north of Bukavu in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. AFP
A patient with a severe form of the mpox is treated at the Kavumu Hospital, 30km north of Bukavu in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. AFP
A patient with a severe form of the mpox is treated at the Kavumu Hospital, 30km north of Bukavu in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. AFP

Morocco reports case of Mpox


Soraya Ebrahimi
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Morocco confirmed a case of Mpox in a man in Marrakesh on Thursday, the Health Ministry said.

The World Health Organisation declared the recent outbreak of the disease a public health emergency of international concern after the new variant was identified.

The ministry did not offer details on the case and did not specify which variant of the viral infection was recorded.

He is in a stable condition and his contacts did not exhibit symptoms.

Mpox belongs to the same family of viruses as smallpox but causes milder symptoms like fever, chills and body aches. People with more serious cases can develop lesions on the face, hands, chest and genitals.

The number of cases has been rising rapidly, WHO director general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said last month, but until recently there have been relatively few deaths.

Dr Jean Kaseya, director-general of the Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, said 107 new deaths and 3,160 new cases had been recorded in the past week.

The increased number of cases comes a month after WHO declared outbreaks in 12 African countries as a global emergency.

The estimated budget for the six-month plan by Africa CDC and WHO is about $600 million, with 55 per cent allocated to the response to mpox in 14 affected nations and boosting readiness in 15 others. Africa is in the process of receiving vaccines.

About 250,000 doses have already been delivered to Congo, but these are just a fraction of the 3 million doses authorities have said are needed to end the outbreak there, the epicentre of the global health emergency.

EU countries pledged to donate more than 500,000 doses, but the schedule around their delivery remains unclear.

Mpox cases have also been reported in Sweden and Pakistan.

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HIV on the rise in the region

A 2019 United Nations special analysis on Aids reveals 37 per cent of new HIV infections in the Mena region are from people injecting drugs.

New HIV infections have also risen by 29 per cent in western Europe and Asia, and by 7 per cent in Latin America, but declined elsewhere.

Egypt has shown the highest increase in recorded cases of HIV since 2010, up by 196 per cent.

Access to HIV testing, treatment and care in the region is well below the global average.  

Few statistics have been published on the number of cases in the UAE, although a UNAIDS report said 1.5 per cent of the prison population has the virus.

Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

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Updated: September 12, 2024, 5:47 PM