Africa’s public health agency says the continent of 1.3bn people still does not have a single dose of a monkeypox vaccine, but discussions were taking place with at least two partners, and a clinical trial was under way in Congo for a vaccine, Jynneos, that’s under emergency use authorisation.
The acting director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Ahmed Ogwell, said he could not give details, but the partners are largely multilateral institutions and non-African governments, reports Associated Press (AP).
There are no discussions with the private sector because all available doses have already been bought by countries, he added.
More monkeypox deaths have been reported on the African continent this year than anywhere in the world. Since May, nearly 90 countries have reported more than 31 000 cases.
At least 2,947 cases have been reported in 11 African countries, including 104 deaths, but most of the cases reported are suspect ones because the continent also lacks enough diagnostic resources for thorough testing, the Africa CDC director said.
The lack of vaccine doses and shortage of diagnostics is an echo of the challenges that Africa’s 54 countries faced for months during the COVID-19 pandemic as richer countries elsewhere raced to secure supplies.
According to Ogwell, the two-dose vaccine, Jynneos, is considered the main medical weapon against the disease, but its availability is limited. The Africa CDC did not immediately respond to a question about details of the trial.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on the final leg of a three-country Africa visit last week, articulated Washington’s new strategy for engaging with sub-Saharan African nations as “equal partners”.
He was recently also in Congo, which has many of the 136 new monkeypox cases reported across Africa in the past week.
Outside Africa, 98% of cases are in men who have sex with men. With a limited global supply of vaccines, authorities are racing to stop monkeypox before it becomes entrenched.
And in efforts to eliminate geographical stigma attached to the name of the disease, the World Health Organization (WHO) is moving away from monkeypox variant names that have given the disease an African stereotype since the late 1950s, when known strains were named after their geographical endemic status.
At the time of discovery they were the Congo Basin (Central African) clade and West African clade. The Congo Basin variant was found in Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon, while the West African clade was mostly found in Nigeria.
Under the new naming regime, reports News24, the Congo Basin variant will be known as Clade One and what was formerly the West African variant will be referred to as Clade Two, which has two subclades.
A clade is a group of organisms from a common ancestor.
The WHO said the proper naming structure would “be represented by a Roman numeral for the clade and a lower-case alphanumeric character for the subclades”.
“Thus, the new naming convention comprises Clade I, Clade IIa, and Clade IIb, with the latter referring primarily to the group of variants largely circulating in the 2022 global outbreak. The naming of lineages will be proposed by scientists as the outbreak evolves. Experts will be reconvened as needed,” said the organisation.
Although monkeypox ceased being known as an African problem, as it was subsequently found in other parts of the world, it was identified with its African nature, which many communities found offensive.
The International Committee on the Taxonomy of Viruses, which is in charge of naming virus species, is now working on a new name for the virus.
Meanwhile, a fourth case has been detected in South Africa, with health minister Dr Joe Phaahla describing the latest patient as a 28-year-old man from the Western Cape who recently travelled to Spain and returned in the second week of August.
“A polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test was performed in a private pathology laboratory, and the samples submitted to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) for sequencing analysis. Public health response measures to prevent the spread of the infection, including contact tracing, have been instituted,” Phaahla said.
News24 reports that the latest case follows three unlinked laboratory-confirmed monkeypox cases reported from Gauteng, Western Cape and Limpopo. All local cases have been in men aged between 28 and 42. Phaahla said the first three cases had completed the self-isolation and monitoring period, and that he would hold a media briefing on Friday to map out government’s response to the disease.
AP News article – Africa CDC in ‘advanced’ talks to obtain monkeypox vaccines (Open access)
News24 article – Fourth monkeypox case confirmed in the Western Cape (Open access)
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Africa fears monkeypox vaccine side-lining as disease spreads
WHO declares monkeypox a global health emergency
Scientists warn of more zoonotic diseases as third SA monkeypox case confirmed