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For the second time in just two years, the World Health Organization has declared a polio outbreak a global public health emergency, signaling growing concern over the spread of infectious diseases in Africa.
The Geneva-based U.N. agency made the announcement late Wednesday, a day after the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention took similar steps, and called for global cooperation in responding to the surge in cases in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo.
MPOX is of growing concern as an example of the growing global threat of zoonotic diseases that are transmitted from animals to humans, and the WHO has urged manufacturers of the MPOX vaccine to apply for emergency use authorisation to speed up supply.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that the recent increase in infections was “very worrying”.
“It is clear that a coordinated international response is essential to stop this spread and save lives,” he said.
The WHO also said it was supporting countries with contact tracing, analysing blood samples and rolling out vaccines.
Formerly known as monkeypox, Mpox can cause fever, skin lesions and sometimes death. Symptoms can be more severe in people with uncontrolled HIV and is transmitted by contact with infected people or animals, or contaminated materials.
The Africa CDC said on Tuesday that outbreaks have been reported in at least 13 countries, bringing the total number of cases this year to 2,863, with 517 deaths.
The more severe lineage 1b variant was detected in the Democratic Republic of Congo in September last year and has now been identified in neighbouring Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and the Central African Republic.
The WHO warned in a report this week that the number of confirmed cases is being underestimated because of limited access to testing in rural areas.
“This is not just a new challenge. It is a crisis that requires our collective action,” said Dr Jean Kaseya, Director of Africa CDC. “Fighting MPOX requires a global response. We need your support, expertise and solidarity. The world cannot turn a blind eye to this crisis.”
The Democratic Republic of Congo is the epicenter of the disease, with an estimated 15,000 confirmed cases this year, more than the total for 2023. The country has never received any supplies of the MPOX vaccine.
Save the Children warned of “overcrowded hospitals” in the Democratic Republic of Congo, stressing that an “already fragile health system remains reeling from previous outbreaks of Ebola and COVID-19, as well as shortages of staff and medical supplies.”
Experts say the current outbreak could be more severe than the previous MPOX health emergency declared by the WHO between July 2022 and May 2023.
“We are clearly facing a different situation with a much higher number of cases and therefore a greater burden of disease,” said Professor Salim Abdul Karim, director of South Africa’s AIDS research programme Caprisa.
The 2022-23 outbreak included cases in people who had travelled to North America and Western Europe, but did not include cases in West and Central African countries where the disease is endemic. The WHO said it was the first time that so many cases and clusters had been reported simultaneously across such a wide area.
Bayern Nordic, the Danish manufacturer of one of the two vaccines recommended by WHO experts, said on Tuesday it had received an order for more than 175,000 doses through the European Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Agency (HERA). The company has donated a further 40,000 doses to HERA.
But the Africa CDC says 2 million doses of the vaccine are needed this year to effectively control the outbreak, bringing the total to 10 million.
