Is Europe making the same mistake with mpox that it did with Covid vaccines?

Shares in companies making and developing products against mpox have surged as the European Union’s public health body raised its alert level for the virus spreading in Africa and beyond. Reuters

As mpox spreads through Africa, there are concerns that the developed countries of Europe could make the same mistake as they did during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Just like during the Covid-19 pandemic, there are concerns that Europe may hoard excess vaccine doses even as those in acute need in Africa go without jabs. The concerns come as a deadly strain of mpox drives the outbreak, which the World Health Organization (WHO) last week declared as a global health emergency.

Congo, which has recorded more than 90 per cent of mpox cases in Africa, has said it “would like the EU to pledge more”.

Hundreds of thousands of doses pledged to Africa

Europe has pledged to provide Africa with hundreds of thousands of doses, but that’s not enough as per the assessments from Africa.

Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) Health Minister Samuel-Roger Kamba has said that his country alone needs 3.5 million doses and Africa would need around 10 million — far from the doses pledged so far.

The European Commission has already bought around 175,000 doses to send to Africa and the manufacturer Bavarian Nordic has topped it with a donation of around 40,000 doses. French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal has said that his country would also send a shipment to Africa.

The largest known donation so far has been pledged from Japan at 3 million. The United States has also pledged 50,000 doses.

But is Europe delivering all it can?

There is evidence that Europe is still sitting on doses despite pledging hundreds of thousands of doses to Africa.

Data collated by Politico shows that there are around 3 million doses with Spain, the Netherlands, and Germany.

The magazine reported that Spain has 500,000 vials, Netherlands 100,000 vials, and Germany around 117,000 doses.

With a new technique of vaccination, a vial may deliver up to five doses. This means that the vials with these three countries may deliver in excess to over 3 million doses, but it is not known if they have individually committed to Africa. However, Spain’s Secretary of State for Health Javier Padilla told Politico that the EU “cannot repeat the mistake of accumulating vaccines in Europe while African countries are not being able to administer them to their population even if the great needs are there”.