Health leaders warned that a failure to show solidarity with African countries at the epicenter of the polio outbreak puts the world at risk and undermines preparedness for future pandemics.
The World Health Organization declared an international public health emergency on Wednesday after the virus saw a rise in cases beyond the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where it is endemic.
Africa has reported more than 18,700 cases and over 500 deaths so far this year, already surpassing the number of cases in all of 2023. The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has declared a public health emergency on the continent.
“The implications of not responding firmly to these declarations could be severe and lead to the spread of new, more dangerous variants. If we don't act now, we pose a risk not just to Africa but to other parts of the world,” said Dr Ebele Okereke, an associate research fellow in the Global Health Programme at Chatham House.
She said the two declarations “provide an opportunity to test global responses to health emergencies in the post-COVID era and demonstrate that lessons on equity have been learned.”
The response to the COVID-19 pandemic has damaged relations between rich and poor countries, as resources like vaccines, tests and personal protective equipment have taken much longer to reach developing countries than they have in wealthy nations.
Negotiations on a pandemic pact that would govern how the world should respond to major infectious disease outbreaks failed to meet a deadline set by the World Health Assembly in Geneva this year, with equity issues at the heart of the effort, including how to guarantee developing countries access to medicines and treatments in return for helping to gather information about pathogens spreading on their territory.
Okereke said how the international community responds to the declaration “will be a litmus test for the potential effectiveness of any future pandemic treaty.”
An inadequate response would also call into question the effectiveness of the current system for declaring emergencies, she said.
Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, said: “Mpox has been prevalent in several African countries for years, but despite the availability of treatment, no serious action was taken until the epidemic threatened Western countries.”
“We have seen the same injustices on display during the COVID-19 pandemic, where lives lost in the Global South have shamefully been treated as collateral damage in the pursuit of greater pharmaceutical profits. So it is not surprising that the Global South's trust in the West has plummeted.”
Dearden said pharmaceutical companies “continue to obstruct fair access to vaccines in pursuit of higher profits” and called on wealthy countries, including the UK, to “stand up to big pharma” and support measures in pandemic treaty negotiations that “stop these deep inequalities from being repeated again and again”.
The United States has announced a donation of 50,000 doses of Gineos' MPOX vaccine to the Democratic Republic of Congo, but in the longer term, health leaders at the Africa CDC say a sustainable supply chain will be needed, including manufacturing on the continent.
