22/08/2024
Europe can defeat mpox, must support Africa in getting vaccines: WHO
By UN
Briefing journalists in Geneva, Dr. Hans Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe, insisted that the risk from mpox to the general population was “low”
He rejected comparisons between the fast-spreading viral disease which the agency declared an international public health emergency last week, and the COVID-19 pandemic, “regardless of whether it’s mpox clade 1, behind the ongoing outbreak in east-central Africa, or mpox clade 2, behind the 2022 outbreak that initially impacted Europe and has continued to circulate in Europe since”.
“We know how to control mpox - and in the European region - the steps needed to eliminate its transmission altogether,” Dr. Kluge continued.
Transmission pattern
Current scientific knowledge about the virus indicates that it primarily transmits through skin-to-skin contact with mpox lesions, including during sex. The UN health agency official’s reply to questions about whether Europe would experience COVID-like lockdowns was an unequivocal “no”.
Speaking via video link from Copenhagen, Dr. Kluge recalled that the 2022 European mpox outbreak was brought under control “thanks to the direct engagement with the most affected communities of men who have sex with men”.
He cited “behaviour change, non-discriminatory public health action and mpox vaccination” as factors of success in Europe in 2022. However, the region “failed to go the last mile” to quash the disease and is currently seeing some 100 new mpox clade 2 cases every month, he said.
Mutation discovered
Last week, Sweden became the first country outside Africa to record a case of the mpox clade 1 variant at the centre of the latest outbreak, which has been spreading from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to neighbouring countries. The Swedish case concerned a person who had travelled to an affected area of Africa.
The current state of alert due to clade 1, which is considered to be more severe, gives European health authorities the opportunity to also strengthen focus on clade 2 and eliminate it “once and for all,” Dr. Kluge urged.
