Mpox response; vaccines; vaccine equity; lessons from Covid-19
Abstract :
[en] The emergency declarations for Mpox triggered a flurry of appeals for ‘vaccine equity’ and the mass production of additional vaccine doses, citing a need to ‘learn lessons’ from COVID-19. We question whether the right lessons have been learned in terms of a supposed need to rollout vaccines quickly and widely, raising concerns about the consequences of an overreliance on expert-driven mass vaccination strategies over more diversified, context-specific and systemic public health strategies. Compared to COVID-19, Mpox has no such epidemic potential because it requires close contact for transmission. Moreover, Congolese populations face far more pressing health burdens. Thus, the health needs of the population risk being lost within a response focused on global procurement of costly health technologies whatever the context in which the outbreak is occurring. Alternatively, locally owned prioritisation and public health and sanitation approaches are key, which should be proportionate to relative disease burdens, and which utilise a diversity of strategies that are cost-effective and with wider public health benefits.
Disciplines :
Public health, health care sciences & services
Author, co-author :
Brown, Garrett; School of Politics and International Relations, University of Leeds, UK ; Correspondence to: School of Politics and International Relations, University of Leeds, Woodhouse, Leeds, UK
Von Agris, Jean; School of Politics and International Relations, University of Leeds, UK
Bell, David; Independent public health consultant, Lake Jackson, USA
Sturmberg, Joachim; College of Health, Medicine and Wellbeing, University of Newcastle, Australia
Ridde, Valéry; Université Paris Cité, Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD), INSERM, CEPED, Paris, France
Makali, Samuel
Ghislain, Bisimwa
Balaluka
Lwamushi Makali, Samuel; Ecole Régionale de Santé Publique (ERSP), Université Catholique de Bukavu, Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo ; School of Public Health, Research Center on Health Policies & Systems -International Health, Université libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
Bisimwa Balaluka, Ghislain; Ecole Régionale de Santé Publique (ERSP), Université Catholique de Bukavu, Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo
Bridge, Gemma; School of Geography, University of Leeds, UK
Paul, Elisabeth ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département des sciences sociales > Sociologie du développement ; School of Public Health, Research Center on Health Policies & Systems -International Health, Université libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
Language :
English
Title :
Perspective: An Overemphasis on Vaccines for Mpox Skewes Important Lessons from COVID-19 and the Need for Public Health Approaches
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