WHO Unveils Plan to End African Mpox Outbreak

TUESDAY, Aug. 27, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- As an mpox outbreak continues to rage in Africa, the World Health Organization on Monday launched a six-month plan to quell its spread.

“The mpox outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and neighboring countries can be controlled, and can be stopped,” WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a news release announcing the plan.

“Doing so requires a comprehensive and coordinated plan of action between international agencies and national and local partners, civil society, researchers and manufacturers, and our Member States,” he added.

What is included in the new battle blueprint? Increasing staffing in affected countries and boosting surveillance, prevention and response efforts are the keystones of the new plan.

It will not be accomplished for free, however: WHO said it expects $135 million in funding will be needed as the agency works to improve access to vaccines, notably in the African countries hardest hit by the outbreak.

The WHO's latest move follows its declaration earlier this month that classified the current mpox outbreak as a global health emergency.

Luckily, relief is on the way: The first mpox vaccine doses from the United States are set to arrive soon in the Congo, and Germany and Japan have also offered up doses, the Associated Press reported.

So far, the Congo has reported the vast majority of mpox cases and needs 3 million vaccine doses just to make a dent in the spread of the virus. Last week, that country reported more than 1,000 new cases in the previous week, the AP reported.

Still, other African countries have not been spared: According to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the new outbreak has led to more than 21,300 confirmed and presumed mpox cases and 590 deaths in 12 countries, some of which have never been affected by the disease before.

The newly spotted strain did surface outside of Africa for the first time earlier this month, when Sweden reported a case of mpox in a person who had traveled to the Congo.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an alert in early August that advised health care providers to be on the lookout for the new mpox strain in patients who have recently been in the Congo or any neighboring country (Angola, Burundi, Central Africa).

Still, "due to the limited number of travelers and lack of direct commercial flights from [Congo] or its neighboring countries to the United States, the risk of clade I mpox importation to the United States is considered to be very low," the CDC added at the time.

This is the second time in three years the WHO has designated an mpox outbreak a global health emergency.

In July 2022, an outbreak that originated in Africa spread worldwide, affecting nearly 100,000 people, primarily gay and bisexual men, across 116 countries and killing about 200 people, the Times reported.

What's worrying in the new outbreak is that the death rate linked to the new strain of the disease appears higher: About 3 percent of those infected have died, instead of the 0.2 percent observed in the 2022 outbreak.

Mpox is spread by close skin-to-skin contact, including sex. It's characterized by a painful rash on hands, feet, chest, mouth or genitals, as well as fever, respiratory symptoms, muscle aches and swollen lymph nodes.

There is a vaccine, Jynneos, that can shield at-risk people from mpox.

Vaccination plus behavioral change among gay and bisexual men, the group most affected in the United States in the 2022 outbreak, has caused U.S. cases of mpox to fall from more than 30,000 in 2022 to 1,700 in 2023.

But the virus is changing: Scientists discovered in 2023 that mpox has gained mutations allowing it to spread more easily between people. Sexual transmission, often through heterosexual prostitution, is a main conduit for infection in Africa.

Dr. Nicole Lurie is executive director for preparedness and response at the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, a nonprofit that finances vaccine development.

Speaking to the Times, she said, “this outbreak has been smoldering for quite a long time, and we continually have missed opportunities to shut it down. I’m really glad that everybody is now paying attention and focusing their efforts on this.”

More information

Find out more about mpox at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

SOURCE: WHO, news release, Aug. 26, 2024; Associated Press; New York Times