World leaders must act quickly on Mpox
Folks, next month world leaders will convene at the United Nations (UN) Headquarters in New York for the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly (Unga).
This annual event marks an important milestone in the global effort to achieve the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted in 2015, highlighting the need for enhanced international cooperation to address pressing global challenges such as conflicts, climate change, poverty, inequality, global health crises, and economic shocks.
This year’s summit is also crucial given the numerous challenges facing the global community today, including poor governance, poverty and ongoing conflicts in Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and the recurring tensions on the Korean Peninsula, among others.
In recent years, world leaders have prioritised climate change, Covid-19, global terrorism, economic meltdowns and various other issues as the defining challenges of our time that require urgent attention.
However, if I were to suggest one key priority for the upcoming summit, I would urge leaders to seriously discuss and find a lasting solution to the Mpox pandemic.
Formerly known as monkeypox, Mpox has been reported in over 120 countries, including 12 in Africa between January 2022 and August 2024, resulting in over 100 000 confirmed cases and over 600 deaths, according to statistics.
The African Centres for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported over 22 800 Mpox cases and 622 deaths in Africa, with the majority of cases and deaths occurring in the Democratic Republic of Congo among children under 15.
Additionally, two deaths were reported in South Africa. African scientists believe that the growing Mpox outbreaks in the continent are largely due to decades of neglect and the global community’s failure to provide adequate vaccinations to populations with little immunity against the disease, which has been in existence for over 50 years.
Dr. Placide Mbala-Kingebeni, a Congolese scientist who helped identify the newest version of Mpox, estimated that Africa needs about 10 million doses to address the Mpox threat. However, it is unclear when the vaccines might arrive, similar to the challenges faced during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Therefore, I urge the leaders to focus on this surging health threat, especially now that this disease is impacting a broader demographic with a potentially more deadly strain of the virus, which has spread rapidly in Africa, Asia, and Europe.
It is vital for the Unga to prioritise a debate on Mpox given the urgent need for answers about this surging global health crisis, comparable to the urgency demonstrated during previous health crises such as Covid-19 and Ebola.
I thus encourage all Malawians to take necessary precautionary measures seriously, including avoiding skin-to-skin contact with individuals who have a suspected or confirmed infection and practising good hygiene by washing hands regularly with soap and water or using hand sanitisers.
Finally, I would like to commend the WHO for declaring the Mpox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern for the second time in two years, following its initial declaration in May 2022.
Hopefully, this move will help to identify the answer to the infection once and for all.
