KAMPALA, Uganda and WASHINGTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–AIDS Health Foundation (AHF) today strongly criticized the World Health Organization (WHO) and the slow emerging collective global response to monkeypox. AHF is particularly concerned by news this weekend that doses of vaccines – in critical shortage around the world and with production delays of several months – have been ordered by the millions by wealthy Western countries, including the Canada, Great Britain, Germany and the United States, but NOPE the doses are targeted for Africa.
Associated press (via LA Times) reported Saturday on the WHO’s decision over the weekend to finally declare monkeypox a “public health emergency of international concern” (USPPI). The AP story documented the explosive growth of monkeypox cases around the world over the past two months, the critical supply of vaccines around the world, and raised the issue of vaccine equity, reporting:
“Dr Placide Mbala, a virologist who heads the global health department at Congo’s National Institute for Biomedical Research, said he hoped all global efforts to stop monkeypox would be equitable.. Although countries like Britain, Canada, Germany and the United States have ordered millions of vaccine doses, none have gone to Africa.
“The emerging disparities in access to the monkeypox vaccine are reminiscent of the inequities that have plagued COVID-19 and demonstrate that the world is once again failing to maintain the spirit of international cooperation and solidarity to address the global public health threats,” said Dr Penninah Iutung, Head of AHF Africa office in Kampala. “HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 have shown us that discrimination and inequality can be catastrophic with lasting consequences on people and on an already strained health system,” she added. “We demand that the principles of fairness, equity and inclusion guide the deployment of monkeypox vaccines, which ensure equal access to vaccines for all who need them, no matter who or where they are. find.”
Since May, the monkeypox virus has broken out in several outbreaks or epidemics outside Africa, where it was long considered endemic in a handful of countries. Today it has become a global public health crisis, with more than 16,600 confirmed or presumptive positive cases reported in nearly 70 countries where it is not considered endemic, as of July 25, 2022. “Factbox: Cases of monkeypox around the world.” The vast majority of these infections occur in gay men and men who have sex with men.
“Despite navigating more than two years of COVID, global, American and global health leaders have once again been caught off guard and woefully ill-prepared, this time for monkeypox,” he said. declared the president of the AHF. Michael Weinstein from Los Angeles. “It also took until Saturday, more than two months since cases were first reported outside Africa, for the WHO to declare the virus a public health emergency of international concern. the rapid and uncontrolled spread of this virus, the WHO should immediately declare monkeypox what it really is: a pandemic. TO HAVE TO be shared equitably with low- and middle-income countries in Africa and elsewhere.
AIDS Health Foundation (AHF), the world’s largest AIDS service organization, currently provides medical care and/or services to more than 1.6 million people in 45 countries around the world in the United States, Africa, Latin America /Caribbean, Asia/Pacific and Eastern Europe. To learn more about AHF, please visit our website: www.aidshealth.orgFind us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/aidshealthFollow us @aidshealthcare or subscribe to our AHF podcast “AHFter the hours.”