Public health officials battling a lethal outbreak of mpox, monkeypox, in Africa are struggling to avoid mistakes that cost lives during the COVID-19 pandemic, starting with the slow acquisition of vaccines.
In the week since the World Health Organization declared the spread of this potentially deadly disease an international health emergency, there has been constant talk of the possibility of getting vaccines to African soilThey are now expected to arrive next week.
Crucially, plans are also underway to ensure that vaccines reach the hands of those vaccinated.
“This is about putting in place robust supply chain management that can accommodate the vaccine that we will be bringing in the next few days,” Jean Kaseya, director general of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Tuesday.
Mpox is present on the continent since the 1970swith little international attention. But although it is the only region where the disease is endemic, it did not receive vaccines against the virus in 2022 as the infectious disease spread around the world.
During the COVID-19 pandemic Something similar happened: when vaccines first became available, Africa found itself at the back of the queue.
Still, African nations have failed to build up vaccine stocks even after agreeing on a plan to improve the continent’s emergency response capabilities.
Part of that failure is related to the lack of local vaccine production. The region imports almost all of its vaccines and attempts to create an industry have failed. Kaseya is convinced that this time will be different.
“Without local production in Africa, we are exposed,” he said.
This is the plan to prevent monkeypox from becoming a pandemic
South African vaccine manufacturer Biovac Institute will discuss with the Africa CDC how to transfer technology so that the company can manufacture mpox vaccines, said CEO Morena Makhoana.
Africa CDC is in talks with Bavarian Nordic A/S, one of the few companies that has an approved mpox vaccine, to get the vaccines quickly and ensure that manufacturers on the continent also have the capacity to fill vials with the vaccine made by the Danish company. This would allow them to produce locally, reducing the price without compromising quality, Kaseya said in an online press conference.
The shares of Bavarian Nordic fell by 7.8 percent in Denmarkafter having gained 39 percent this year. The company is scheduled to present its half-year results on Thursday.
Serum Institute of India Pvt., the world’s largest vaccine maker, is “working on developing” shots for mpox, Chief Executive Officer Adar Poonawalla said in a statement Wednesday.
The continent needs 10 million doses, But vaccines are very expensive. At about $100 per dose, “many countries cannot afford to buy them at that price,” said Helen Rees, founder of the Institute for Reproductive Health and HIV in Johannesburg. The United States has more than doubled its emergency health assistance to $55 million to bolster its response to the outbreak, according to a statement released on August 20.
Bavarian Nordic has said it will be able to meet the immunization needs of African nations. The problem has been a lack of orders: manufacturers will not produce large quantities of vaccines unless they have some kind of guaranteed market.
“As this is a global health threat, we need to find funding to subsidize vaccines in low- and middle-income countries where cases are being detected,” said Rees, who also chairs the WHO’s African Regional Technical Advisory Group on Immunization. African nations need to get their supplies now, before the threat spreads, he said.
“Unless the African region has access to all of these products that are required to respond to an emergency, we are going to be waiting in line forever,” Rees said.
Even if vaccines arrive, there will not be enough for large-scale vaccination. Africa CDC They plan to prioritize high-risk populations and people who may come into contact with the disease through domestic or sexual networks.
While most of the spread in the eastern flank of the Democratic Republic of Congo is among children, some research suggests there is an almost entirely separate outbreak among adults, many of them women who identify as sex workers.
Congo recorded nearly three-quarters of the 1,405 new MPOX cases in Africa in the week ending Tuesday, according to data from the Africa CDC. About 17 percent of them were confirmed by testing, while the rest fit the agency’s definition of the disease.
