The number of cases of mpox registered in Sierra Leone since the beginning of the year has hit 3,011, with 14 dead of the disease, according to new government data.

All of the regions in the west African country have now registered cases, according to the latest health ministry figures released late Friday.

The new figures mark a nearly 50-percent rise in registered cases since the previous update 10 days ago, on May 13, when 2,045 cases and 11 fatalities were registered since the start of the year.

Mpox is caused by a virus from the same family as smallpox, manifesting itself in a high fever and skin lesions.

First identified in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1970, the disease had generally been confined to a dozen African countries before spreading more widely from 2022.

The WHO declared its highest level of alert in 2024.

A police training centre in the capital Freetown has been refurbished into a 400-bed facility to deal with the increasing cases, authorities said.

A decade ago, Sierra Leone was one of the countries worst affected by an Ebola epidemic, which between 2014 and 2016 killed about 4,000 people, including nearly seven per cent of health professionals.

Other African states have seen rising cases of mpox, with thousands of cases notably afflicting Congo, Rwanda, Tanzania, Burundi and Kenya.