WHO, partners meet on mpox, hoping to avoid COVID failures on fair medical access

[August 17, 2024]  By Jennifer Rigby

LONDON (Reuters) -The World Health Organization was due to host an emergency meeting on Friday to discuss ways to ensure fair global access to tests, treatments and vaccines for mpox, a leading official said, as the viral infection spreads in parts of Africa and beyond.

The meeting would be attended by members of an alliance of health experts who oversaw the global response to COVID-19 and include global health agencies such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.

They will discuss how to ensure that failures during the COVID pandemic over ensuring equal access to medical treatments, tests and vaccines are not repeated with the mpox outbreak, Ayoade Alakija, chair of the meeting and a WHO special envoy, said.

The U.N. health agency declared a global health emergency for mpox on Wednesday after a huge outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo spread into nearby countries. On Thursday, Sweden reported the first case outside Africa linked to the outbreak.

“We failed on product access last time, but we have learned those lessons ... and I will make sure that equity (equal access) is the first thing we are thinking about (now),” Alakija said.

During COVID, many low-income countries were left behind as high-income countries snapped up medical tools to fight the virus, especially vaccines. The WHO-led alliance did ultimately see nearly two billion vaccines, hundreds of millions of tests, and hundreds of thousands of treatments delivered worldwide.

An undated colorized transmission electron micrograph of mpox virus particles (teal) found within an infected cell (brown) cultured in the laboratory, captured at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Integrated Research Facility (IRF) in Fort Detrick, Maryland. NIAID/Handout via REUTERS

Mpox was also declared a global health emergency in 2022, and access was again unequal. For example, vaccines were widely available in regions like Europe and the United States, but there are still none in Africa two years later despite the severity of the ongoing outbreaks.

Alakija stressed that battling the disease was not all about vaccines, though, as public health measures such as awareness campaigns could also help communities protect themselves, in a similar vein to the HIV response.

(Reporting by Jennifer RigbyEditing by Susan Fenton and Frances Kerry)

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