It is not known how effective vaccines are against the new variant of monkeypox, but an expert assures that it is the best ‘tool’ we have – El Universo

On August 14, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared an international health emergency due to the spread of mpox, also known as monkeypox.especially in Africa, where thousands of infections and hundreds of deaths have been recorded.

This health warning must be related to the rapid expansion and high mortality of the new variant (cemetery 1b) on the African continent, and the first case was identified in Sweden in a traveler who was in an area of ​​Africa where the virus circulates intensively.

Vaccination, together with raising the awareness of people at risk and isolating contact cases, made it possible to stop the 2022 mpox clade 2 epidemic It is not known how effective vaccines against the new variant may be.

Marion Koopmans, director of the Pandemic and Disaster Center at the Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands, said that experts do not know how the new mpox clade 1b virus will react to current vaccines. “The honest answer is we don’t know yet.” said the expert, in detail Daily Mail.

Experts are not sure how much protection the vaccines provided against the 2022 outbreak.

WHO reminds that the monkeypox vaccine takes weeks to receive

WHO urges more smallpox vaccinations

Smallpox vaccines are given against smallpox, details of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). Among them are Driveauthorized in the 1930s by the FDA; ACAM2000authorized in 2007; and MVA-BN (also known as Imvanex, Imvamune, or Jynneos), the most recently developed smallpox vaccine, approved by national regulatory authorities in the European Union, Canada, and the United States to prevent smallpox and smallpox.

Because of the similarities between the two viruses, experts believe that smallpox vaccines are also effective against mpox, known as cross protection.

However, since it was implemented during a live outbreak, it was difficult to determine exactly what benefit it provided, Koopermans says.

It is believed that during the 2022 outbreak, gay and bisexual men (the group most affected by mpox) they took other measures to reduce their risk, such as limiting the number of new sexual partners.

“There is limited evidence of clinical efficacy of vaccines given during a growing outbreak, when there are also other things that people do that reduce transmissionKoopmans said. “It is not so easy to say whether the vaccine offers complete protection. It is hoped that there will also be sufficient cross-protection for clade 1bbut that is an area that needs investigation,” he said.

Dimie Ogoina, an infectious disease specialist at the Niger Delta University, said that another factor that could be a challenge to the distribution of the mpox vaccine in Africa is that it will be received first.

“Any vaccination strategy must be based on knowledge of the epidemiology of the disease in the area,” he said. “I’m not sure we fully understand the transmission dynamics and risk factors of mpox in many parts of Africa,” he said.

Ogoina also pointed to uncertainty about the effectiveness of current mpox vaccines. “The vaccine efficacy studies that have been done have been done in the global north for clade 2b and among gay and bisexual men,” he said.It is not possible to be sure that the effectiveness was based on the vaccine alone“, said.

In any case, said Placide Mbala Kingebeni, an epidemiologist at the Clinical Research Center of the National Institute for Biomedical Research in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the country most affected by the outbreak. current, that vaccines are still”the best tool we have“.

“Even though we don’t have all the data on effectiveness, it’s something we should do,” he said.

Despite the health crisis, the public health agency of the African Union (AU) – Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) – expects the first vaccine to land in early September in the DRC.

On the other hand, the WHO said this week that it recommends that masks be used only for healthcare workers who are in contact with mpox patients and for their caregivers if they are outside the hospital environment.

WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris confirmed that infection occurs through very close contact, skin to skin, with a limited risk of transmission through aerosols emitted from the mouth of a person with the virus and, only when you are face to face with the patient. (YO)