African countries affected by mpox and still waiting for vaccines

The promised vaccines have not been sent to any African countries where a new strain of mpox is spreading. This has delayed a launch that was supposed to happen last week.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is where the new group 1b form is most likely to have spread. The WHO reports that there have been 18,000 potential cases and 629 deaths this year.

This type has also been found in Thailand, Burundi, Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, and Sweden.

On Friday, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the WHO, said that the first doses should get to the DRC "within days." However, similar claims were made recently about given shots from the US, which did not arrive on time.

There needs to be an organized reaction. Spain has offered up to 500,000 doses, France and Germany each 100,000, and the US has said it will give 50,000. So far, the promises have yet to be kept.

The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said on Wednesday that only 10% of the $245 million (£187 million) it had requested to fight the disease had been paid.

Even though mpox was first found in people in the DRC in 1970, African countries that are sensitive to its spread depend on stronger countries to donate medicines.

Dr. Dimie Ogoina is an infectious disease doctor at the Niger Delta University teaching hospital. He said that even though pox was first found decades ago, there were still not enough vaccines or treatments for the countries that needed them because of poor planning by both international and African governments.

He said that the world only really responded to the disease when it spread worldwide in 2022, affecting people in Europe and North America.

Ogoina said that African countries should invest in their own health protection against diseases like pox so that they don't have to rely on donations.

He said, "The manufacturers are not in Africa." "Whether they know it or not, they tend to favor the global north." The list of people to get always puts Africa at the bottom, and we are always the last ones to get goods.

In mid-August, the WHO declared a public health emergency because of the spread of clade 1b, a new form that can be passed on through close physical contact, such as sexual contact, as well as through homes.

Concern has been made about the high number of children who are dying. The WHO says that up to 8% of children fewer than 15 die each year. The latest report from the Africa CDC, released on Tuesday, showed a sharp rise in cases, from 1,200 the week before to almost 4,000.

Last week, civil society groups sent a letter to Gavi, the global vaccine union, asking it to push for lower prices on the vaccine made by Bavarian Nordic. Each dose currently costs between $50 and $75.

"The ongoing unfairness of mpox is due to long-term indifference and unfairness, stigma, slowness, weak use of public power, and yes, greed," said Peter Maybarduk, head of access to drugs at the US-based advocacy group Public Citizen, which signed the letter.

He said that while the US government had invested in making the Jynneos pox vaccine, Bavarian Nordic was now responsible for production and the "outrageously high" costs.

Victorine de Milliano, policy adviser at MSF Access, the part of Médecins Sans Frontières that fights for fair medical care, said that lower-income countries have a "systematic issue" that makes it hard for them to get medical tools in public health emergencies. This was made clear during the COVID pandemic when richer countries could stockpile vaccines, tests, and treatments.

"I feel like I have seen this before." "You would think we would learn something from the COVID-19 pandemic, but we keep seeing the same patterns," she said. "Low- and middle-income countries now depend on donations from high-income countries that have vaccines also." We also see a monopoly on vaccines, which means they are sold to anyone who pays the most.

Bavarian Nordic told the Africa CDC that if orders are approved, it could provide 2 million pills this year. This will help the company move resources from other production lines to the new line.

A company representative told the Guardian that the company had given 55,000 doses and would let them know when there was a deal to start sending to more people.

The company also said it was willing to use tiered prices, meaning that countries with weaker budgets would pay less than countries that could order more vaccines over a more extended period.

Ogoina said it was good to see that African leaders were paying attention to the public health issue and discussing how they could spend money on dealing with it. He also said that help came from outside Africa but must be maintained.