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19 August 2024

Africa CDC Declares Mpox Emergency, Moving to Lead Response

Linda Nordling

The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has declared a "public health emergency of continental security" over mpox as a deadly strain of the virus previously found only in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) spreads to neighboring countries.

Jean Kaseya, Africa CDC's director general, made the declaration on Tuesday, August 13 after consulting with health experts and African leaders, the first time the body has invoked this new mandate since adopting the designation last year.

According to Kaseya, the declaration will enable Africa to lead and coordinate its response and promote the continent's role in global maneuvers. It will also promote "international solidarity," he said, to prevent what happened during the COVID-19 pandemic, when wealthier countries prioritized vaccines and treatments for themselves.

Kaseya made the announcement less than a week after telling journalists that he was mulling the declaration. "We don't want to be abandoned again. We are deciding when there is an emergency, and we are speaking with one voice," Kaseya said during an August 8 media briefing, convened a day after World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Tedros Ghebreyesus stated his agency was consulting on whether to declare mpox a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC).

Experts say that the timing of Kaseya's statement signals that Africa is looking for a more prominent role in the fight against the outbreak than in previous public health emergencies.

"There has been some tension between Geneva and African states over whether the region should declare its own health emergency," said Lawrence Gostin, the faculty director of O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.

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