African health officials have called on the international community not to impose travel bans on countries dealing with an outbreak of mpox, but instead to support the continent in rolling out tests and vaccinations.
There were about 1,400 new cases and 24 deaths linked to a new variant of mpox in the past week, according to the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Don’t punish Africa,” said Africa CDC’s head, Jean Kaseya, during a media briefing on Tuesday. “We hear from here and there that you want to apply travel bans… we need solidarity, we need you to provide appropriate support, this vaccine is expensive.
“I clearly request our partners to stop thinking about travel bans against Africa, which will return us to the unfair treatment of the Covid era and will not help the world to move forward.”
Argentine authorities quarantined a cargo ship in the Paraná River on Tuesday near the inland grain port of Rosario over a suspected case of mpox on board.
Fernando Morales, president of the operating body the Argentine Navy League, said a Liberian-flagged ship was ordered to drop anchor in the river while a test was carried out on a crew member.
“A crew member with fever and weakness was taken to a hospital in San Nicolas. There they performed some tests and they say it could be mpox in principle,” Morales said, adding that the diagnosis has not yet been confirmed.
Kaseya said he hopes vaccines will soon be in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the source of an outbreak that has spread to at least three other countries.
He said there was promising cooperation between countries and health organizations, but that he would not be satisfied with progress in tackling the outbreak until community-level testing networks were established to ensure no cases were missed. Wealthier nations could help expand testing and obtain vaccinations, he added.
He said there had been discussions with vaccine manufacturer Bavarian Nordic to allow local production, which would help lower the price.
The company told Africa CDC it could supply 2 million doses this year, but only if it started working immediately by switching the focus to mpox rather than other vaccines.
It said it would begin redirecting resources to mpox vaccines even before orders were placed, depending on the outcome of talks with the World Health Organization (WHO).
DRC’s Minister of Health, Roger Kamba, said on Monday that 16,700 cases and 570 deaths had been recorded this year.
Africa CDC said there needs to be more education about the spread of the disease, especially to ensure people know that it is not only spread through sexual contact, as many believe. It can spread through close contact with an infected person.
Gay and bisexual men accounted for the majority of cases in the 2022 global outbreak, but children accounted for 70% of DRC cases during the latest one.
Congolese virologist Prof Jean-Jacques Muyembe said the lessons learned from Covid-19 in terms of distancing and hygiene should be remembered, as well as ensuring that people practice safe sex, as encouraged to avoid HIV.
“We need to put it all back into place and not lose from our memory what we have learned from previous diseases, to apply it to save lives,” he said.
WHO Regional Director for Europe Hans Kluge said mpox should not be compared to Covid-19 because more is known about how to contain it through surveillance, case investigations and the behavior of the most affected communities be changed.
Most cases are in the DRC, but the clade 1b variant is also found in Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda.
