The risk of it moving is big. There’s the case in Kenya where a trucker brought it in, and people can get on a plane with it. This is what I’m most worried about because the cases we know about are the ones that have been very sick and coming to hospital, but what we don’t know is how many people have a milder infection
I knew this was something different because the symptoms were so different from clade 1 - what we normally see in the DRC,
These are two parallel outbreaks of two variants with different modes of transmission and at-risk groups, thus requiring different strategies for containment. They also differ in morbidity and mortality.”
This is a very, very bad situation,
This is the most dangerous clade of mpox we have ever seen,
I believe it will very easily spread elsewhere, particularly because people regularly travel from Goma - where there are currently cases - to Europe via the international airport there,
There is a real attempt right now to mobilise resources and that is why in part WHO called for the public health emergency now,
The detection and rapid spread of a new clade of mpox in eastern DRC, its detection in neighbouring countries that had not previously reported mpox, and the potential for further spread within Africa and beyond is very worrying,
There are two vaccines for mpox that have been approved by WHO-listed national regulatory authorities, and which are recommended by WHO's Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization, or SAGE."
Mpox is a zoonosis, a disease that is transmitted from animals to humans, with cases often found close to tropical rainforests where there are animals that carry the virus,
I have triggered the process for Emergency Use Listing of both vaccines, which will accelerate vaccine access particularly for lower-income countries, which have not yet issued their own national regulatory approval,
It's clear that a coordinated international response is essential to stop these outbreaks and save lives,
What I’m truly worried about is the amount of cases that are not severe. If people have got a more mild infection that is potentially hidden, especially if it’s a sexually transmitted genital infection, they can be walking around with it,
We are now in a situation where (mpox) poses a risk to many more neighbors in and around central Africa,
The world has a real opportunity here to act in a decisive manner and not repeat past mistakes, (but) that will take more than an (emergency) declaration,
The United States and Japan are the two countries that positioned themselves to give vaccines to our country,
The worst case I’ve seen is that of a six-week-old baby who was just two weeks old when he contracted mpox,
It’s a failure of the global community that things had to get this bad to release the resources needed,
We need a large supply of vaccine so that we can vaccinate populations most at risk,
Clade I is a very serious infection,