Mpox Spread Can Be Nipped in the Bud With Aid and Vaccines, US Says

(Bloomberg) -- The US aims to contain the outbreak of a fast spreading sub-variant of mpox in central Africa by targeting $500 million in aid and the provision of vaccines to the countries most affected.

The money and vaccines will be distributed through bilateral agreements with governments, John Nkengasong, the US’s senior bureau official for global health security and diplomacy, said in an interview in South Africa’s capital, Pretoria, on Wednesday.

“We should always remember what the problem we are trying to solve is. The problem is to blunt the spread of mpox, which means we have to make sure the theater of response is where the virus is spreading,” said Nkengasong, a former head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. “Mpox is spreading rapidly and we should take it seriously.”

While mpox has been present in central and western Africa for decades, a new sub-variant — known as clade 1b — has spread rapidly in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and into Burundi and other East African countries. Unlike earlier versions, it appears to circulate via all types of sexual intercourse and close physical contact, and it has already killed hundreds of children.

Last week, the current head of the Africa CDC, Jean Kaseya, said mpox cases were suspected in at least 15 African nations. At the time, he said 840 deaths had been attributed to the disease, which causes painful lesions as well as other ailments. Cases caused by the sub-variant have also been reported in Sweden, Thailand and India.

Nkengasong blamed the spread of the disease to East African countries, where it hasn’t been found before, as well as a first-time outbreak of the Marburg virus in Rwanda in recent days, to increased travel and interaction with wild areas where few people had previously visited.

He cited the example of the Ebola virus, first discovered in 1976 in the Congo, outbreaks of which have become more frequent in recent years.

“A disease threat anywhere in the world is a threat everywhere in the world because of the movement of people,” he said. “We have said before that this will drive emergence of diseases and now we are seeing those emergences.”