Africa CDC calls on Western countries to increase funding for Mpox response | Health News

Health authorities report 107 deaths and 3,160 new infections in the past week, number of fatalities is “unacceptable”.

The head of the African Union health agency has called on Western countries to learn from the COVID-19 pandemic and not abandon Africa in the face of an ongoing MPOX outbreak.

Dr. Jean Kaseya, director general of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), said on Thursday that 107 new deaths and 3,160 new cases were recorded last week, just a week after his agency and the World Health Organization (WHO) launched a continental response plan.

“In one week we lost 107 [people]”This is too much. This is not acceptable,” he said, stressing the need for stronger cross-border surveillance.

In August, WHO declared Mpox an international emergency because of concerns about an increase in cases of the new clade 1b strain in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the epicenter of the outbreak.

The African CDC announced that it is short of the $600 million planned to combat the disease, which is now occurring in 14 countries on the continent.

Kaseya called on Western nations to help meet the funding goal “to show that they have learned from COVID.”

“We do not want to come back tomorrow and say: You have let Africa down again,” he said during an online meeting.

Some African Union member states have already contributed to the budget of the six-month response plan, a move Kaseya praised as a sign of the continent's ownership.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Western countries have been criticized for abandoning Africa by hoarding vaccines or favoring supplies to richer countries.

“As we know, trust between Western countries and Africa has been destroyed. It is really time for solidarity,” said Kaseya.

Global problem

According to the latest figures from the Congolese Ministry of Health, nearly 22,000 cases and 716 deaths related to the virus have been recorded since January.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted last month that the number of cases is rising rapidly, although deaths have remained relatively low until recently. The rise in cases followed the WHO's declaration that outbreaks in 12 African countries constitute a global emergency.

So far, the Democratic Republic of Congo has received around 200,000 vaccine doses from the European Union and around 50,000 from the United States.

European countries have pledged several hundred thousand more vaccine doses, Kaseya said, in addition to the roughly three million pledged by Japan.

He did not provide any further details, including when the vaccines might be delivered.

Mpox is caused by a virus that is transmitted to humans through infected animals. However, transmission from person to person is also possible through close physical contact.

It belongs to the same family of viruses as smallpox, but causes milder symptoms such as fever, chills and body aches. In more severe cases, lesions can appear on the face, hands, chest and genitals.

When testing for the disease, the positivity rate was highest among men at 63 percent, while among children under 15 it was 41 percent.

Kaseya said there is a need for more testing and the resources to do so, adding that the continent is not testing enough and cannot rely solely on confirmed cases to make decisions and respond.

The Director-General announced that he would travel to the Democratic Republic of Congo to receive the vaccine when the rollout is expected to begin in the first week of October. He said he wanted to “demonstrate to both the African and Congolese populations that the vaccine is safe.”