Mpox vaccines are urgently needed for adults and children in the most affected African countries to limit a fresh outbreak internationally, the chair of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) African advisory group on immunisation said.

The lack of vaccine “isn’t only a disaster for individuals who are now going to be exposed to disease who would otherwise be protected, but it’s a problem in terms of containing the outbreak,” Helen Rees said on Bloomberg Television on Friday. “One of the things that vaccines do is - apart from protecting you as an individual - is that they stop transmission.”

While Africa is the only continent where the disease is endemic, it didn’t receive vaccines for the virus in 2022 as the infectious illness spread around the world and has still failed to secure shots even as a newly mutated version is spreading. 

The mpox vaccine will be available in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the bulk of the outbreak is, by the end of next week, Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention director general Jean Kaseya said Tuesday. 

Once the shots arrive, they would be well-received by the public, Rees said. 

During outbreaks of Ebola where immunisation was available, “there’s been a high acceptance of those vaccines,” Rees said. This is partly because there is community fear amid new flare-ups, and because children are largely affected in Congo, she said.

The struggle for vaccines was similar during the Covid-19 pandemic - when those shots first became available, the continent found itself at the back of the queue.

The WHO has hosted talks for more than a year to develop a pandemic treaty where all the member states contribute. The treaty would ensure equitable access to vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics for treatment.

“If countries have stockpiles that they’re not willing to share, then we are not going to be able to stop the next pandemic,” Rees said. “There needs to be a bit of a wake-up call to countries that are better resourced, that do have these vaccines and diagnostics, that very early on there needs to be sharing.”

  - Bloomberg