After emerging as an mpox hot spot giving the virus a worrisome foothold in West Africa, cases have declined in Sierra Leone over the past 6 weeks, part of an overall encouraging trend in Africa's outbreaks, a top official from Africa Centres for Disease Prevention and Control (Africa CDC) said today at a weekly briefing.
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Yap Boum, PhD, MPH, deputy incident manager for Africa CDC's mpox response, said the case positivity in Sierra Leone last week showed a slight downward trend, a sign that the involvement of more community healthcare workers is having some success at identifying infections occurring outside of hospital settings. He also noted that Sierra Leone is having success pairing contact tracing with mpox vaccination, which he said is very efficient.
Meanwhile, Uganda has reported a slight rise in the past 3 weeks, which Boum said is expected given that the country is providing greater support for contact tracers.
Over the past week, infections in Uganda, Sierra Leone, and Zambia made up 88% of confirmed cases in Africa.
Funds for vaccine purchases dry up
Boum said though plenty of Bavarian Nordic mpox vaccine is available for purchase, there are no funds for UNICEF and other providers to buy more doses to allocate to countries. He added that the supply shortage comes at a bad time, as African countries make headway with their outbreaks and have seen good uptake in affected populations.
"This is a challenge, this is a crisis," Boum said. "This is an imperative of equity."