The first batch of mpox vaccines for Africa, donated by the United States, will finally reach the continent late this week amid criticism of delays in the process caused by WHO red tape.
The vaccines are already available in more than 70 countries outside Africa. The continent has long struggled to obtain vaccines, but has now received 10,000 doses of the vaccine from the US, though 10 million doses may eventually need to tackle the outbreak across the continent, according to the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).
The delays highlight troubling problems in the very structure of international agencies that handle global health emergencies.
Health workers and scientists say the WHO required until this month to formally begin the process necessary to give African countries easy access to large quantities of vaccines through international agencies. Diseases have plagued the continent for decades, while the process of providing various vaccines could have begun years ago.
Lengthy waits for WHO approval for international agencies to procure and distribute vaccines have forced individual African governments and the continent’s public health agency, the Africa CDC, to seek vaccine donations from wealthy countries instead.
Helen Rees, a member of the Africa CDC’s emergency mpox committee and executive director of the Wits RHI Research Institute in Johannesburg, South Africa, called the vaccine betrayal process outrageous as the continent was once again behind, even though it had previously struggled to get vaccine during the Covid pandemic.
The WHO has this month asked vaccine manufacturers to provide the information needed to obtain an emergency licence for mpox vaccines. In addition, the organisation urged countries to donate vaccines before the process is completed in September.
