As concerns rise about mpox, avian flu and other disease outbreaks, negotiations continue for a global pandemic treaty aimed in part at helping make a global response to the next pandemic more equitable. Health Policy Watch (Switzerland) calls the current draft a “pandemic ‘lite’ agreement”, reporting, “The latest draft of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) pandemic agreement shifts key decisions to the Conference of the Parties (COP) – a body that will be set up after the World Health Assembly (WHA) has adopted the agreement.” Elliot Hannon, Spark Street senior researcher and an observer at the negotiations is quoted: “The [WHO] Bureau’s new suggested language really shows they’re taking out the most contentious issues, particularly on PABS [Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing], and leaving the details to be worked out later. The aim, of course, is to meet their deadline and to produce some kind of agreement on PABS.”
Nation (Kenya) interviewed the negotiating body’s Co-Chair Dr Precious Matsoso, from South Africa: “On pathogen access and benefit sharing, for instance, Matsoso says that its implementation will ensure improved access to pandemic-related health products, as well as technologies with measures that establish regionally distributed production. Africa is also calling for obligatory measures in line with equity-related provisions, as well as pandemic prevention and public health surveillance, preparedness, readiness, resilience, and health and care workforce.” As the Nation concludes, “A deal, or no deal? Only time will tell.”
If You Are in a Hurry
- Read Dr. Maria D. Van Kerkhove’s call for a swift, coordinated, and equitable response to mpox in STAT.
- Read a BBC account of the situation at a DRC mpox treatment center overwhelmed with mpox cases.
- Watch a STAT video explainer on mpox with senior reporter Helen Branswell.
- Read CIDRAP on a new study that shows millions of lives in the Caribbean and Latin America were likely saved by COVID vaccines.
- Read NPR on questions about a human case of avian flu in the US and then an interview with WHO’s Maria Van Kerkhove in STAT about what she wishes the US would do to respond.
US NIH Establishes Pandemic Preparedness Research Network
A press release from the US National Institutes of Health says the agency “has established a pandemic preparedness research network to conduct research on high-priority pathogens most likely to threaten human health with the goal of developing effective vaccines and monoclonal antibodies. Currently, many of the diseases caused by these pathogens have no available vaccines or therapeutics, and investing in this research is key to preparing for potential public health crises—both in the United States and around the world. NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) expects to commit approximately $100 million per year to fund the program, pending the availability of funds.”
Mpox Updates: Africa CDC Calls for More Support for Mpox Response; DRC Vaccinations to Begin October 2
AFP (France) via Barron’s reports, “The head of the African Union's health watchdog said [last week] it was time for the West to show it had learnt from the Covid pandemic and not abandon Africa during the mpox outbreak…. Africa CDC head Jean Kaseya said he was hopeful the funding goal would be met ‘because this is time for Western countries to show that they learnt from Covid. We don't want to come back again tomorrow to say, you again abandoned Africa,’ he said…”
In a STAT (US) opinion WHO’s pandemic threat director Dr. Maria D. Van Kerkhove writes, “A swift, coordinated, and equitable response is critical to controlling the outbreak and preventing future resurgences. Global neglect led us to this situation. A global response, based on equity and solidarity, is the only thing that can get us out of it…. For this collaborative response to be effective, countries must commit to share data quickly and transparently, to support and engage in coordinated emergency responses, to share available resources, to reduce conflicts and ensure safe access for health workers in the region, and to ensure political commitment to the response at the highest levels. The tragedy is that although mpox has been endemic in Africa for decades, it attracted little attention outside Africa from donors, researchers, or media before the global outbreak that began in 2022. As long as mpox continues to circulate in any part of the world, the risk of resurgence remains everywhere.”
Biz Community (South Africa) reports, “Democratic Republic of Congo will start its mpox vaccination campaign on Wednesday, 2 October, 2024, nearly a week earlier than previously planned, the head of its outbreak response said…. ‘There are procedures that have evolved and helped reduce delays,’ he said, adding that the vaccination campaign will last 10 days and target only adults, including healthcare professionals, park rangers and sex workers in Congo's six provinces.”
In correspondence to The Lancet (UK) Abdu A Adamu and colleagues write, “efforts to curb mpox are particularly daunting because outbreak response strategies would be implemented to control a virus that is not well understood in terms of epidemiology, transmission dynamics, and natural history. Additionally, vaccines under consideration lack safety and effectiveness data for key target populations, such as children. Also, disinformation is rife in outbreak situations, leading to heightened levels of vaccine hesitancy and compromising uptake when vaccines become available. The diverse contexts of the ongoing outbreak have implications for the outcome of control efforts, thus necessitating robust application of implementation science to guide effective operationalisation of all outbreak response pillars to pre-emptively anticipate and manage complexity.”
Bloomberg (US) via The Philadelphia Tribune reports, “The US will continue to work with the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization to ensure the spread of a lethal outbreak of mpox in Africa doesn’t develop into a pandemic. ‘We’ll stay committed until we bring this outbreak under control,’ said John Nkengasong, US senior bureau official for global health security and diplomacy, who previously headed up Africa CDC…. While getting vaccines onto the ground in the most-affected countries has been crucial, it’s equally important to ‘strengthen systems to make sure that the vaccine that we already have are actually deployed,’ Nkengasong said. Unlike with Covid-19 when the African CDC pushed to vaccinate 70% of the population, the mpox inoculation plan is ‘to be very, very targeted,’ he said.”
CIDRAP (US) reports, “UNICEF yesterday announced the launch of a $58.8 million appeal to support the mpox response in six African countries where children are most affected by the disease…. The focus of UNICEF’s appeal are children in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, and the Central African Republic, all of which are experiencing rising clade 1 mpox activity. UNICEF said 60% of the nearly 22,000 suspected and confirmed mpox cases in Africa this year are in children younger than 15 years old and that 80% of the more than 700 mpox deaths have involved kids. So far, the DRC is the only country to report fatal infections in children.” Read the UNICEF press release.
BBC (UK) reports, “Medical staff on the front line of the battle against mpox in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have told the BBC they are desperate for vaccines to arrive so they can stem the rate of new infections. At a treatment centre in South Kivu province that the BBC visited in the epicentre of the outbreak, they say more patients are arriving every day - especially babies - and there is a shortage of essential equipment.”
A US NIH press release reports, “the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) has released an update on its priorities for mpox research. The NIAID mpox research agenda focuses on four key objectives: increasing knowledge about the biology of all clades—also known as strains—of the virus that causes mpox, including how the virus is transmitted and how people’s immune systems respond to it; evaluating dosing regimens of current vaccines to stretch the vaccine supply and developing novel vaccine concepts; advancing existing and novel treatments, including antivirals and monoclonal antibodies; and supporting strategies for detecting the virus to facilitate clinical care and epidemiological surveillance. Read the research agenda.
In a STAT (US) video senior reporter Helen Branswell “answers the most frequently asked questions about what is happening with mpox now and what can be done to stop this current outbreak.”
A WHO mpox dashboard “provides an overview of the mpox epidemiological situation in Africa, on a weekly basis (as of 15 September 2024), as well as the global epidemiological situation on a monthly basis (as of August 2024).”
COVID Vaccines Saved up to 2.6 Million Lives in Caribbean and Latin America
CIDRAP (US) reports, “COVID-19 vaccines saved about 610,000 to 2.61 million lives in 17 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) in the first 1.5 years of vaccine availability, estimate researchers from Yale University, Brazil, and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)…. ‘Despite the many challenges to COVID-19 vaccination in LAC—including timely access to vaccines, varying vaccine products and schedules, evolving circulating variants, and shifting vaccination strategies and target groups—these findings underscore the underscore the substantial impact of timely and widespread vaccination in averting COVID-19 death,’ the authors wrote.” Read the study.
Massive Increase in Worldwide Cholera Deaths in 2023
VOA (US) reports, “The number of cholera deaths reported last year worldwide ballooned from the previous year by 71% to more than 4,000, the World Health Organization reported…. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus lamented the death toll from a disease he described as ‘preventable and easily treatable. Conflict, climate change, unsafe water and sanitation, poverty and displacement all contributed to the rise in cholera outbreaks,’ he added.”
Polio Updates: Politics, War and Vaccine Decisions
New York Times (US) reports on the path of the polio virus that emerged earlier this year in Gaza, “This journey was the consequence of a fateful decision by global health organizations to pare down the oral polio vaccine in 2016. The move, now called “the switch,” was intended to help eradicate the disease. Instead, the change has led to outbreaks of polio in dozens of countries and has paralyzed more than 3,300 children. A formal evaluation, commissioned by the global polio eradication program and led by two independent experts, was unflinching in its assessment: ‘The switch was an unqualified failure.’…factors, including conflict zones and weak routine immunization programs, continue to prevent eradication. Vaccine hesitancy, growing populations and overcrowding further complicate matters…. Experts with the eradication program remain optimistic that the world can eradicate all types of polio, everywhere.”
AP (US) reports, “The Taliban have suspended polio vaccination campaigns in Afghanistan, the U.N. said Monday. It’s a devastating setback for polio eradication, since the virus is one of the world’s most infectious and any unvaccinated groups of children where the virus is spreading could undo years of progress. Afghanistan is one of two countries in which the spread of the potentially fatal, paralyzing disease has never been stopped. The other is Pakistan. It’s likely that the Taliban’s decision will have major repercussions for other countries in the region and beyond.”
Avian Flu Case Concerns Scientists
NPR (US) reports, “A week after an unusual human case of H5 avian influenza was reported in Missouri, many questions remain…. Unlike the 13 other human cases of H5 bird flu reported this year, that individual had no obvious connection to infected animals…. Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo with the National Institutes of Health says it seems unlikely that this person in Missouri caught the virus from another human or passed it on.” Marrazzo is quoted: “There is, at this time, no evidence to suggest human-to-human transmission. But that is, of course, our worst fear because once you go there, then obviously all bets are off.”
In an interview with STAT (US), WHO’s Maria Van Kerkhove says, “I think the cross-sectoral collaboration that’s happening in the U.S. is challenging on many different fronts. But this is the One Health approach right in front of us. And if there are not investigations that take place when you have a detected case in humans — back tracing, forward tracing, looking at animal exposures, going to the ministry of agriculture or the USDA, looking at wildlife, looking at poultry, looking at dairy cattle, looking at swine — then we don’t have a complete picture. That’s what concerns me, not having that complete picture.”
Fur Farming Could Spark the Next Pandemic
Nature (UK) reports, “Infectious-diseases researchers are calling for stricter biosafety measures in farms that breed animals for fur, to stop dangerous pathogens from jumping from animals to people. Fur farms can be a bridge between people and the viruses circulating in wildlife, says Eddie Holmes, a virologist at the University of Sydney, Australia. ‘This is how pandemics happen.’ The warnings come off the back of one of the largest studies1 of viruses harboured by fur animals in China. The team, which included Holmes, found a broad array of viruses — including new pathogens and known ones found in new hosts.” Read the study. |
