How Sierra Leone beat back mpox

Pictures of sore, blistered genitals have gone viral in Sierra Leone in recent months. The gruesome photos showing symptoms of mpox have helped persuade Sierra Leoneans that the virus, which spreads mainly through close physical contact and causes fever, chills and skin blisters, is a real public-health threat. That has made them more willing to follow government advice on how to avoid it. “When we had Ebola, I was one of the people saying I don’t believe it is real,” says Moses Lavalie, a 32-year-old in Freetown, the capital. “But mpox? Mpox is very real.”