Africa CDC urges Western countries to boost funding for Mpox response

The head of the African Union’s health agency urged the West to learn from the Covid-19 pandemic and avoid abandoning Africa amid the mpox epidemic.

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared mpox a global emergency in August 2024, due to the spread of the new Clade 1b strain in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the epidemic’s epicenter. The African Center for Disease Control (Africa CDC) reported that it has not yet met its $600 million fundraising goal to combat the virus, now present in 14 African countries.

Africa CDC director Jean Kaseya called on Western countries to demonstrate they have learned from Covid, expressing optimism that they will. “We don’t want to return later and say you’ve abandoned Africa again”, Kaseya said during an online mpox briefing.

He emphasized the need for Western countries to rebuild trust, which was damaged during the Covid-19 pandemic when richer nations were often prioritized for vaccines.

Kaseya highlighted that “trust was broken between Western countries and Africa,” and in facing the “global problem” of mpox, it is crucial to show solidarity. The DRC, the hardest-hit country, has reported nearly 22,000 cases and 716 deaths since January, according to local authorities. Kaseya also noted that increased screening is essential to better track the epidemic.

So far, the DRC has received about 200,000 vaccine doses from the European Union and around 50,000 from the United States, despite having a population of approximately 100 million. Kaseya mentioned that several hundred thousand more doses have been promised by European countries, along with about three million doses from Japan, though he did not provide specific delivery dates.