Public health officials warn that moves by rich countries to buy large quantities of monkeypox vaccine could leave millions of people in Africa unprotected against a more dangerous version of the disease.
With monkeypox vaccines in short supply, there are restrictions on who can get them. But a Harvard doctor is calling out the CDC and New York City on their vaccine eligibility requirements, which are mostly focused on men who have recently had sex with a male partner. That perpetuates the idea that monkeypox is sexually transmitted, and focuses on particular groups rather than risk, Dr. Aditi Nerurkar says on LX News.
“If we’re not safe, the rest of the world is not safe,” said Africa CDC’s acting director, Ahmed Ogwell. WHO is developing a vaccine-sharing mechanism for affected countries, but has released few details about how it might work. The U.N. health agency has made no guarantees about prioritizing poor countries in Africa, saying only that vaccines would be dispensed based on epidemiological need.
At the moment, there is only one producer of the most advanced monkeypox vaccine: the Danish company Bavarian Nordic. Its production capacity this year is about 30 million doses, with about 16 million vaccines available now. “I really didn’t think this would spread very far because monkeypox does not spread like COVID,” said Salim Abdool Karim, an infectious diseases epidemiologist at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. “Africa should procure some vaccines in case we need them, but we should prioritize diagnostics and surveillance so we know who to target,” he said. “Normally, you’re able to get ahead of a disease like monkeypox, but I am concerned hasn’t started coming down yet.
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