Africa-Press – South-Africa. Africa is yet to receive a single dose of the monkeypox vaccine despite increased cases in Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Ghana, says the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Speaking at a weekly virtual briefing on Thursday, the health body’s regional director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti, said so far, they have provided test kits to high-risk countries.
“Although no single monkeypox vaccine has been administered to any high-risk group in any of the African countries reporting cases, [the] WHO has provided 39 000 test kits to [affected] countries, enabling improved testing rates,” she added.
Moeti repeated her call for a coordinated global response, including equitable access to the available tools to address the monkeypox threat across the continent, adding that failure to do so would burden its healthcare capacity.
She said:
The only time the continent had experience with a monkeypox vaccine was during trials in the Central African Republic (CAR).
“Fundamentally, however, Africa is still not benefiting from either monkeypox vaccines, nor the antiviral treatment, Tecovirimat, the only doses of which have been administered in a small study in the Central African Republic on the continent,” Moeti added.
In 11 African countries, there have now been 581 confirmed cases and 12 deaths. Six of the 12 deaths occurred in Nigeria, four in Ghana, and two in the CAR.
Last month, a WHO-convened committee of worldwide experts decided on new names for monkeypox viral variants as part of ongoing work to match the names of the monkeypox disease, virus, and variants (or clades) with current best practices.
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