More than 100 people have died from mpox in Africa in the last week alone, almost 15 per cent of all fatalities reported this year, as the outbreak of a mutated strain spirals across the continent.
In a briefing on Thursday Dr Jean Kaseya, head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the concerning variant had now been spotted in 14 countries in the region, with more than 26,500 infections and 724 deaths recorded since January.
But in a sign that the worst may be to come, the last week alone saw 3,160 new mpox cases and 107 fatalities – equal to 11 per cent of infections and 14.7 per cent of deaths detected so far in 2024.
“It’s too much, it’s not acceptable,” Dr Kaseya told journalists, adding that children under 15 have been “disproportionately affected”.
Mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, became a major focus when it lapped the globe in 2022, predominantly in gay and bisexual men. But while that epidemic was caused by clade 2, the most dangerous form of mpox has been endemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo for decades, known as clade 1.
Yet early last year the situation worsened dramatically. Tens of thousands of people have since been infected, while a concerning mutant variant, clade 1b, has emerged in the country’s east.
As this variant began to sweep across international borders, the World Health Organization (WHO) last month declared a global health crisis – its highest health alert – and clade 1b has since been spotted as far afield as Thailand and Sweden.
‘Not just an African issue’
“When we say, ‘we need to stop this outbreak now’, it’s because we don’t know if we can get another mutation,” Dr Kaseya warned. “Let us remind each other, it’s not just an ‘African issue’ as some newspapers quoted, it’s a global issue. Countries are reporting cases across the world.”
But in much of the DRC, healthcare workers on the frontline are still facing a chronic shortage of resources to respond – in some places, even soap and antiseptic wipes are unavailable.
The outbreak has also highlighted profound inequalities in access to vaccines. Although ‘at risk’ individuals can walk into a clinic in London and access an mpox shot, not a single vaccine has yet been rolled out inside the DRC.
While some of this can be attributed to bureaucratic hurdles – including delayed regulatory approval in the DRC and slow WHO procedures – experts have also warned that there has also been tendency for Western countries to stockpile their available supplies as a biosecurity measure.
The mpox vaccines were first developed to target smallpox, a close viral cousin. While it was wiped out in the 1980s, yet there are lingering concerns about the threat of a deliberate smallpox outbreak.
‘Vaccines are useless on shelves’
However, according to analysis by Reuters, countries including Japan, the United States and Canada have several hundred million doses of vaccines. The first shipment of shots only arrived in the DRC last Friday.
“It’s not a technical question, it’s a political one,” Maria Van Kerkhove, acting head of pandemic and epidemic prevention at the World Health Organization, told Reuters. “Vaccines are useless on shelves. Why wouldn’t we get them to the people who need them right now?”
In Thursday’s briefing, Dr Kaseya said more vaccine donations are trickling into the DRC – as well as the first shipment of 99,000 doses from the European Union, 50,000 shots arrived from America and 15,000 from the agency Gavi on Tuesday. Still, this is a tiny number compared to the millions at risk in the vast country.
• Source: The Telegraph
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