Another global warning: mpox is spreading. Here are three steps we can take to stop it | Gordon Brown
JJust over a year after the World Health Organization declared that Covid-19 was no longer a public health emergency of international concern and that the 2022-23 MPOX crisis had subsided, warning of a new crisis as cases of yet another new strain of the mpox virus spread from the Democratic Republic of Congo to other countries in Africa and beyond.
On Thursday, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said was in the DRC assessing the situation on the ground as the organisation has launched an emergency appeal to fund a Β£102 million ($135 million) global strategic preparedness and response for mpox plan to prevent the transmission.
Unfortunately, countries with the resources and power to stop the outbreak have been slow to provide help. Once again, people are dying because vaccines, tests and treatments available in the West, which could have been allocated to countries at the top long ago, have not arrived.
WHO is increasingly concerned as the virus mutates into a strain that is spreading across and beyond Africa. 615 people died this year in the DRC, where 90% of cases in Africa are included. The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Africa CDC, last week reported 20,000 cases in 13 African countries, almost certainly an underestimation due to lack of adequate surveillance. Now the first cases have been registered as far away as Thailand and Sweden.
The tragedy is that what could have remained a locally contained outbreak has grown into a deadly disease because the countries that have the vaccines have been slow to act, even when they were aware that the Outbreak 2022 led to more than 100,000 mpox cases in 121 countries. Today, effective vaccines are being developed that can help prevent the disease from spreading. stored in America and Europe, while the affected countries, including the DRC, no doses received yet.
It is a solvable problem. Of course, the involvement of local communities is needed to stop transmission. But international support is also essential.
First, thousands of available vaccines could now be released. The Africa CDC estimates that the continent may need as many as 10m doses to end the outbreak β but that may be the worst-case scenario that can be avoided. Currently, Japan has pledged to donate 3 million doses of its LC16m8 vaccine, which is also recommended for children. Spain will donate 500,000 vaccines. The European Commission has promised to donate 215,000 vaccines, while Germany and France have each pledged to donate 100,000. Soon the US will will send 50,000 doses to the DRC. The first vaccines are expected to arrive there within days and important decisions will have to be made on how best to allocate these precious doses. More will be needed to meet the needs of a country of nearly 100 million people.
Second, the burden can be shared and the cost of the two shots of the vaccine that people need can be negotiated down. While the market price β between $70 and $100 β remains unaffordable for the poorest countries, the global nature of the threat shows why richer countries should help. The pandemic and the work of Covax, the initiative to ensure access to Covid-19 vaccines already show that no one is safe until everyone is safe, and global coordination to get vaccines to the right places is necessary. In addition, the recent creation of global mechanisms such as the $500 million First Response Fund from Gavi, the international vaccine alliance working to protect children, which helps provide low-income countries with immediate resources for vaccination in the event of a public health emergency.
Third, we need to increase our production capacity to ensure greater supply. This requires pooled procurement mechanisms, supported by donor funding to coordinate procurement. The lesson from Covid-19 is that local vaccine production in Africa must now also play a key role. Western vaccine manufacturers must enter into agreements to transfer production technology to African manufacturers.
But a larger lesson needs to be learned quickly, because it is now urgent that we fund WHO’s investment plans to ensure that WHO can respond to crises. The mpox outbreak reminds us that infectious diseases rising to become the leading cause of premature death and for the first time in recent history the number of children who not received every vaccine dose increases. All of this adds to the growing threats to life from conflict and extreme weather, which exacerbate air pollution and malnutrition. WHO needs the tools to act because more than 4 billion People have no access to health care and are so poorly protected that they cannot afford to be sick, yet today we offer WHO just 30 cents per person per year to support their life-saving work.
It is time to abandon the madness of the hand-to-mouth approach. That means that richer countries only pass around the begging bowl when too many preventable deaths have occurred. Making long-term financial provisions for good health care is the best insurance policy in the world.
It should not be seen as a cost, but as a critical investment β ββone that, if made through the WHO, will have a positive impact. impressive return of $35 for every $1 invested. And so we urgently need donor countries to provide WHO with the flexible and predictable financing it needs to implement its strategy over the next four years. To bridge the gap between the estimated contributions of $4 billion and the need for $11.1 billion in sustainable financing over the four years to 2028, WHO has needs $7.1 billion β $1.5 billion of this will go directly to expanding health care in low- and middle-income countries. This should now be on the agenda of every major donor country in the run-up to the G20 in November, chaired by President Lula of Brazil.
The eradication of smallpox during the Cold War demonstrated that countries can work together and muster the political will to sustainably support the WHO in preventing the spread of infectious diseases. So we must ask ourselves: how many more disease outbreaks can the world allow before we realize that if the WHO did not exist, it would have to be created to meet the challenges of the future?