Africa CDC develops continental response plan for Mpox

The Africa Centre for Disease Control (CDC) is developing a Continental Response Plan to guide the response to the Mpox outbreak in African countries.

The Africa CDC Director-General, Jean Kaseya, disclosed this during an online media briefing on Tuesday.

According to him, the plan is being worked on, and a draft of the document should be submitted to relevant groups, such as the Emergency Response Consultancy Group, for their input by Wednesday.

Mr Kaseye said that the plan has two major components. One is the individual response plan of African countries affected by the outbreak of the zoonotic disease, and the other centres on the response plan obtained from partners providing technical support.

He said these partners play a crucial role in “responding to the outbreak of Mpox in the country.”

“This is not just about Africa CDC. It is also about other partners within and outside the continent who have joined the effort to curb the outbreak.

“Mpox is not an African disease. This is wrong. It is a public health concern that is affecting countries around the world,” he said.

According to Mr Kaseye, some of these partners are Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), the World Food Program (WFP), and the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Countries’ response plan

Mr Kaseye also noted the Continental Response Plan will combine the response plans developed by the 13 countries with suspected and confirmed cases of Mpox.

He said the continental plan will also provide an avenue for the public agency to review the quality of the response plan developed by each country and support the development of a better plan.

“This will help us identify the needs of each country and the quality of the plan developed by each country,” he said.

The continental plan includes the plan of all 13 countries.

“By tomorrow (Wednesday), we are finalising the first draft and sharing it with relevant authorities for their input. Once we get their input, the plan will be presented during the governing board meeting of Africa CDC to validate the plan,” Mr Kaseye.

“Africa CDC is calling for the committee of heads of state in the second week of September. The committee will also involve some key partners at the highest level. It will be an opportunity for our head of state to endorse the Continental Response Plan.”

The DG pointed out that this plan is the first continent action to be developed in Africa as a response to an outbreak while noting that it will also help build capacity for vaccine production on the continent.

Mpox vaccine

Mr Kaseye also said the Africa CDC has secured 215,000 IMVANEX vaccine doses from Bavarian Nordic.

He also said the public health agency expects an additional 100,000 vaccine doses from France.

“This means we have moved from 215,000 doses to 315,000 doses.

“On top of that, we have 55,000 doses coming from the US. We also have another 15,000 coming from GAVI, while Germany is also expected to donate vaccines to Africa as well,” he said.

He noted that the Africa CDC has at least 380,000 doses of vaccines that will be distributed amongst affected African countries.

While declaring that countries will also be expected to pledge to fund the collective effort to curtail the outbreak, Mr Kaseye noted that the agency plans to use the $10.4 million grant provided by the Africa Union Committee to distribute and administer the Mpox vaccine across the continent.