An Indian health worker walks in front of a list of high-risk countries for the Monkeypox virus, at Chennai International Airport, in Chennai, India, 16 July 2022 (reissued 28 November 2022). The World Health Organization (WHO) in a statement on 28 November 2022 said it "will begin using a new preferred term mpox as a synonym for monkeypox" simultaneously for one year until the term 'monkeypox' is phased out. The decsion was taken after consultations with global experts as "racist and stigmatizing language online, in other settings and in some communities was observed and reported to WHO." EPA-EFE/IDREES MOHAMMED 
The man died in Tembisa Hospital on Monday, Health Minister Joe Phaahla told a news conference.
Mpox spreads through close contact, causing flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions. Most cases are mild but it can kill.
Phaahla said all of South Africa's mpox cases were in men aged between 30 and 39 years old without travel history to countries currently experiencing an outbreak, which suggests local transmission of the infectious disease.
"All five cases were classified (as) severe cases ... requiring hospitalisation. The cases have co-morbidities and have been identified as key populations, men who have sex with men," he told reporters.
One patient has been discharged, one discharged for home isolation and two remain in hospital.
Sequencing of three of the cases found the strain mpox clade IIb, which began to spread globally in 2022.
The Republic of the Congo declared an epidemic of mpox in April after recording 19 cases of the virus. Mpox was first detected in humans in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo in 1970, according to the World Health Organization.
(Reporting by Tannur Anders; Editing by Alexander Winning and Hugh Lawson)