WHO launches plan to contain mpox

The World Health Organization (WHO) today announced the launch of a preparedness strategy and response plan to contain a mpox outbreak rapidly spreading in African countries, with two related cases recently reported in Sweden and Thailand.

The plan, which covers the next 6 months, also includes a more fleshed-out price tag of $135 million, for which the WHO will soon launch a funding appeal.

In a speech today at a meeting of the WHO regional committee for Africa, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, said the plan hinges on comprehensive surveillance and response, minimizing zoonotic transmission, empowering communities to take an active role, and advancing research on and equitable access to vaccines and other countermeasures.

A complex, dynamic picture

The plan also supplements recently published temporary recommendations from the WHO’s emergency committee and standing recommendations for the earlier spread of the clade 2 mpox virus. 

Cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the main hot spot, have topped 18,000 this year, Tedros said, noting that cases are already above the record level in 2023. 

Responding to each of these outbreaks, and bringing them under control, will require a complex, comprehensive, and coordinated international response.

So far, 220 cases of the new clade 1b virus, first seen in the DRC, have been reported in four of the DRC’s neighbors that had never reported cases before. He said other clades have been reported in other DRC regions, as well as other African nations. 

“It’s a complex and dynamic picture, and responding to each of these outbreaks, and bringing them under control, will require a complex, comprehensive, and coordinated international response,” he said.

First vaccine priority: interrupt transmission chains

Tedros said the WHO on August 23 received information from one vaccine manufacturer to allow consideration for emergency use listing (EUL), which he said could be issued in the next 3 weeks. 

“In the meantime, I have given the green light to Gavi and UNICEF to proceed with procurement of vaccines, pending the EUL decision,” he added.

The response plan said strategic vaccine efforts have a goal of interrupting transmission chains and will focus on people at greatest risk, including close contacts of recent cases and healthcare workers.

In other vaccine developments, Germany became the latest country to offer vaccine doses to the African region. Christoph Retzlaff, who directs African diplomacy for Germany, said on X that, as a first step, the country will send 100,000 doses to affected African countries. Media reports said the doses will come from Germany’s military stockpile and that Germany will also provide financial resources.