Mpox crisis: Africa to finally receive its first batch of vaccines against virus

Africa will finally receive its first batch of vaccines against the mpox, weeks after they have reached other parts of the world where the virus is prevailing. A report by The Guardian earlier this week said that 10,000 shots, donated by the United States (US), will be used to tackle theclade Ib variant.

This new variant began to spread into the Democratic Republic of the Congo and then to neighbouring African countries, and also outside Africa. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared mpox a global health emergency on August 14 following the rapid spread of clade lb.

A warning by experts before Africa got the jabs

Vaccines against mpox have been made available in over 70 countries outside Africa. Last week, experts warned that the failure to provide Africa withvaccines until now displayedworrying problems in the way international agencies deal with global health emergencies.

The experts said that it took the WHO until this monthto officially start the process needed to give African countries easy access to large quantities of vaccines via international agencies – even though mpoxhas infected people there for decades.

This processcould have begun years ago, they added.

10 million vaccine dosesneeded in Africa

The long wait for WHO approval for international agencies to buy and distribute the vaccines has forced individual African countries and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – to instead request donations of shots from rich countries.

A top official from the Africa CDC told Reuters it was “really outrageous” that, after Africa struggled to access vaccines in the Covid pandemic, the continent had once again been left behind.

As mpox rages on, the CDC said that 10 million vaccine doses might be needed across Africa tocope with the outbreak.

(With inputs from agencies)