Health authorities in Africa have called on rich countries to share the world’s limited supply of vaccines as the monkeypox outbreak escalates.
Monkeypox has been affecting people in parts of west and central Africa for decades, but poor surveillence and lack of laboratory diagnosis led the virus to spread undetected across the continent. Countries in Africa have reported more than 1,800 suspected cases so far this year, including more than 70 deaths. However, only 109 cases have been lab-confirmed.
A WHO panel said last week that the expanding monkeypox spread was worrying, but did not yet warrant being declared a global health emergency. The international organization said it would reconsider its decision if disease spread across borders continued, became more severe, or infected vulnerable groups like pregnant women and children.
More than 5,000 cases of monkeypox have been reported in 51 countries globally, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most of those cases are in Europe, yet no deaths beyond Africa have been reported.
WHO said that monkeypox within Africa has spread to countries it hadn’t previously touched, including South Africa, Morocco, and Ghana. The overwhelming majority of the continent’s infections are in Congo and Nigeria, however.
Limited global supplies of vaccines are a significent barrier to fighting monkeypox. The vaccines have been mostly developed to combat smallpox, which is intented to stop smallpox, a related disease, but has not been authorized for use against monkeypox in Africa.
The scramble for vaccines appears to mirror that of last year’s COVID-19 surge; many countries with supplies of vaccines are not yet sharing them with African countries.