As the world scrambles to roll out vaccines and drugs to defuse the biggest monkeypox outbreak beyond Africa, it’s becoming clear the resources needed to prevent the disease have long been available, just not to Africans who have dealt with it for decades.
Monkeypox is in the same family of viruses as smallpox, and smallpox vaccines are estimated to be about 85% effective against monkeypox, according to WHO.
Generally, Africa has only had “small stockpiles” of smallpox vaccine to offer health workers when monkeypox outbreaks happen, said Ahmed Ogwell, acting director of the Africa CDC. WHO has 31 million doses of smallpox vaccines, mostly kept in donor countries and intended as a rapid response to any re-emergence of the disease, which was declared eradicated in 1980. Doses from the U.N. health agency’s stockpile have never been released for any monkeypox outbreaks in central or western Africa.Dr. Mike Ryan, WHO’s emergencies chief, said the agency was considering allowing rich countries to use the smallpox vaccines to try to limit the spread of monkeypox.