The Monkeypox outbreak in Africa was announced by the World Health Organisation as a ‘Public Health Emergency of International Concern’ on 14th August 2024. Features Section Editor, Sophie Poredos, reports on what you need to know about the multi-country virus.
Living in a post-COVID world, we’ve seen the strict contingencies surrounding public health and a new-found societal focus on preventing disease via mask-wearing. Hand sanitisers are still prominent in most shopping locations and work-from-home is now a generally acceptable route for visibly ill workers. Yet, we have made almost no progress at all in empowering and protecting nations within the Global South from disease, outside of the imperialistic rule of Western countries.
The Mpox outbreak in Africa is of considerable concern, reaching over 220 deaths and 100,000 confirmed laboratory cases. This viral DNA disease was first discovered in 1958 within captive monkeys, followed by its first human case in 1970. [1] Originating in the orthopoxvirus family, it is quite similar to smallpox but fortunately not as deadly. [2]
Mpox occurs through the transfer of bodily fluids, face-to-face contact, or via direct contact with sores from a person who is infected. Unlike COVID-19, current research suggests that Mpox does not appear to travel through air-borne transmission. [3] Laying dormant for many years as an uncommon ‘zoonotic’ infection in remote rural areas in tropical Africa, [4] concern exploded with its outbreak of the Clade II West African strain in 2022.
Seemingly ‘out-of-nowhere’, the outbreak began in South Africa in 2022, but soon sparked global concern with over 99,000 laboratory-confirmed cases in 116 countries. Its peak in August 2022 had over 6,000 cases reported each week. [4] Despite these high numbers, the African continent’s battle with Mpox was very much neglected by the international community, and seen as “someone else's problem”. [4] Mpox has since evolved into a much more fatal disease with the 2023 Clade I (Congo Basin) strain producing an 11 per cent mortality rate. [5] The disease has now spread to non-endemic countries surrounding the DCR including Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda. To put it into perspective, the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has a 0.7 per cent fatality rate. [6]
After announcing Monkeypox as a ‘Public Health Emergency of International Concern’ in August this year, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros said,
"The emergence of a new clade of mpox, its rapid spread in eastern DRC, and the reporting of cases in several neighbouring countries are very worrying. On top of outbreaks of other mpox clades in DRC and other countries in Africa, it’s clear that a coordinated international response is needed to stop these outbreaks and save lives.” [1]
There seems to be a colonial pattern of access to medicine and modern vaccines. As with COVID-19, modern vaccines and antiviral drugs against Mpox were developed in high-income countries, despite the fact that monkeypox has been causing disease in parts of Africa for at least 50 years. Reminiscent of the oversupply of Coronavirus vaccinations in Australia, there is currently a stockpile in the US and Europe of the Mpox vaccines. The main Mpox vaccines on the market have not been made readily available for affected African countries until approved by WHO. Low-income countries often do not have the budget for vaccines, as seen with Monkeypox’s ‘Jynneos’, which is a Bavarian vaccine that costs $110 USD per dose. [7]
We’ve seen greed before; there are many criticisms for the Mpox virus and its spread, both into neighbouring countries, and internationally with the new Clade IIb affecting large parts of Europe. Monkeypox was neglected by the international community, until it became our concern, as according to the Conversation, “On just one medical search engine, there’s been more research on Mpox produced since April 2022 than in the preceding 60 years.” [4]
It is the international community’s responsibility to look beyond our capitalistic ecosystem and instead, reframe our colonial and survivalist mindset, to put the needs of those suffering before monetary gain. I found a research paper had surmised the root of this problem: the disconnectedness from our fellow beings and the individualistic mindset held by Western nations, despite living even more interconnected with our Globalised world than ever before:
“Assisting our fellow humans when they ask for support to decrease illness and death from emerging infections is our collective duty; in addition, from a purely strategic perspective, there is now no place so remote, no virus so exotic, that it can be considered strictly someone else's problem”. [8]
ENDNOTES
[1] WHO Media Team, “WHO Director-General declares mpox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern”, World Health Organisation, 2024. https://www.who.int/news/item/14-08-2024-who-director-general-declares-mpox-outbreak-a-public-health-emergency-of-international-concern
[2] “Mpox (formerly Monkeypox)”, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, 2024.
[3] CDC Media Relations, “CDC Monkeypox Response: Transmission”, Centre for Disease
Control, 2022. https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2022/0509-monkeypox-transmission.html#:~:text=It%20is%20not%20known%20to,such%20as%20clothing%20or%20linens.
[4] Prieser, Wolfgang et al. “Mpox outbreak in Africa was neglected – it could now turn into
the next global pandemic”, The Conversation, 2024. https://theconversation.com/mpox-outbreak-in-africa-was-neglected-it-could-now-turn-into-the-next-global-pandemic-236893#:~:text=The%20global%20outbreak%20in%202022,declared%20over%20in%20May%202023.
[5] L. Amrico, Jeffrey et al. “Virulence differences of mpox (monkeypox) virus clades I, IIa, and
IIb.1 in a small animal model”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America vol. 120, 8. 2023. doi:10.1073/pnas.2220415120
[6] MacIntyre, Raina. “WHO has declared mpox a global health emergency. What happens next”, The Conversation, 2024. https://theconversation.com/who-has-declared-mpox-a-global-health-emergency-what-happens-next-236778
[7] Williamson, Anna-Lise, “Mpox vaccines: where they come from and what stands in the way of distributing them in Africa”, The Conversation, 2024. https://theconversation.com/mpox-vaccines-where-they-come-from-and-what-stands-in-the-way-of-distributing-them-in-africa-237047#:~:text=Availability%3A%20The%20mpox%20vaccines%20are,vaccines%20for%20at%2Drisk%20populations.
[8] Adetifa, Ifedayo et al. “Mpox neglect and the smallpox niche: a problem for Africa, a problem for the world.” Lancet (London, England) vol. 401,10390 (2023): pg. 1822-1824. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(23)00588-3
Comments