The director general of the World Health Organization has declared a public health emergency. The International Health Regulations Emergency Committee on the disease failed to agree on a declaration at the end of its second meeting in less than a month. The number of confirmed cases worldwide rose from 3,040 to more than 16,000 and the number of deaths rose from one to five, according to the WHO.
Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa, told Scientific American that earlier action would have drawn more attention to the disease and spurred countries to assess the risks. She said that it would have made it easier for African countries to respond to the disease.
Moeti said that an earlier declaration had the potential to "trigger additional attention from all countries and possibly thentrigger the availability and the allocation of additional resources at the global level that might be available to African countries." Some of the entities that control some of the tools are obligated to provide support.
Tedros doesn't think it's too late. He said in his declaration that he could stop transmission and bring the outbreak under control.
According to the dean of the faculty of veterinary medicine at the National Pedagogical University, additional resources could have helped expand response efforts to many provinces that were not being supported by current partners.
Moeti told Scientific American that the World Health Organization is working with African countries. The director of the African Center of excellence for genetics of infectious diseases disagrees with some aspects of the WHO's handling of the monkeypox outbreak. When cases of monkeypox were reported in African countries, there was no discussion of using the world's stock of vaccine.
It's a shame for the WHO to do that because they havemonkeypox in the Global North.
The WHO continues to work closely with the ministries of health and the laboratory networks in the African region and supports countries that have reported cases of monkeypox in the last few years.
There have been no confirmed cases of monkeypox in Nigeria for almost 40 years. According to the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC), the number of confirmed cases in the country has dropped from a previous peak of 88 to eight in 2020.
The Nigerian government has begun an emergency response to the current monkeypox outbreak, according to the director general of the NCDC. He admits that there is a challenge to the country's ability to respond to multiple disease outbreak. Adetifa says that we have limited resources that are being competed for. No matter what the headlines are focused on, we continue to deal with everything.
There are daily updates on the state of the COVID epidemic. The gap between the number of suspected and confirmed cases is the main reason for the lack of such updates. There were more than two thousand suspected monkeypox cases on the continent from January 1 to July 8. The lack of testing kits and ingredients is to blame.
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Many African countries lack reagents and training in specimen collection, handling and testing due to the fact that they don't have the proper equipment to test for monkeypox, according to Moeti. She said the WHO is working to secure 60,000 tests for Africa, of which about 2,000 tests and reagents will be shipped to high-risk countries that account for 80% of suspected cases on the Continent.
The true magnitude of the monkeypox outbreak in the DR is not known because of insufficient testing. He says what we know isn't the reality. All the suspected samples are not analyzed. There should be more cases that aren't recorded.
Inequity in the distribution of COVID vaccines is one of the reasons why they don't get a lot of use in Africa. According to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a similar trend is occurring with the distribution of the vaccine that protects against monkeypox.
African countries could have had access to additional tools if aPHEIC had been declared earlier. The acting director of the Africa CDC said in a press conference on July 21 that there are no vaccine doses on the African continent.
More than 191,000 vaccine doses have been distributed by the U.S. government. By the end of the month it will have 786,000 more doses of the monkeypox vaccine in its inventory. The ACAM2000 vaccine is licensed by the FDA and works against monkeypox but has side effects that should not be used in people with compromised immune systems. The US response to monkeypox has not been flawless.
The U.K. Health Security Agency says that it has recently acquired an additional 100,000 vaccine doses to continue its vaccine strategy. Men who have sex with men are included.
The current inequity will put global health at risk if a prompt emergency declaration is not made.
"Our lives are not the same; their lives are worth more than ours." You will keep having the disease in your backyard because you think you're only neglecting some other people. It's not how they are dealing with it now that should worry the whole world.
The Africa CDC is needed to meet the continent's public health emergency response needs. The reason why people are interested in Africa CDC is because of its pragmatic nature. He says it is very important.
The executive council of the african union agrees At a recent meeting, it adopted an amended statute of the Africa CDC that allows it to declare public health emergencies even if the WHO doesn't. The WHO initially opposed the amendment because of its concern that it could lead to travel restrictions similar to the travel bans that were announced in South Africa.
In order to have a better response to monkeypox and other zoonotic diseases, African countries need to prioritize prevention. The "One Health" approach that treats human, animal and environmental health as interdependent and pays more attention to wildlife monitoring can be used by countries.
All countries are encouraged to strengthen the capacity for early detection and response. The capacity of veterinary diagnostic laboratories should be strengthened because it will always be better to tackle the disease from the animal source.
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