The British newspaper, The Guardian, reported that Africa is set to receive the first batch of the deadly “monkeypox” vaccine this week, following its availability in over 70 countries outside the continent. The 10,000 doses, donated by the United States, will be used to combat a dangerous new strain of the virus, formerly known as monkeypox, which sparked a global alarm following its outbreak in 2022.
The delay in supplying the continent with the smallpox vaccines highlights issues with how international agencies handle global health emergencies. Medical officials pointed out that it took a long time for the World Health Organization (WHO) to make the vaccine available to African countries through the responsible international agencies, despite the fact that the disease has affected people there for decades. They emphasized that this process could have started years ago.
On August 14, the WHO declared a global health emergency after the new strain, known as clade Ib, began spreading from the Democratic Republic of Congo to neighboring African countries.
The long wait for the purchase and distribution of vaccines has forced individual African governments and the continent’s public health agency, Africa CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), to request vaccine donations from wealthy nations. However, this process may fail, as it has in the past, if donor countries feel the need to reserve vaccines for their own populations.
Helen Rees, a member of the African Smallpox Emergency Committee and executive director of the Wits RHI Research Institute in Johannesburg, South Africa, told Reuters that it is “truly disgraceful” that Africa, after struggling to access vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic, is facing a similar tragedy once again.
The Africa CDC indicated that up to 10 million doses may be needed across the continent to address the outbreak. This month, the WHO urged vaccine manufacturers to provide the necessary information to obtain emergency use authorization for the smallpox vaccine—WHO’s accelerated approval for medical products—and encouraged countries to donate doses until the process is completed in September.
According to The New York Times, the WHO stated that it does not have the required data to approve the vaccine, and an emergency authorization process can only be implemented after an international public health emergency is declared. Mpox is a potentially deadly infection that causes flu-like symptoms and spreads through close physical contact.
