Congo first to receive much-needed Mpox vaccines, but vaccination campaign faces major challenges

johannesburg — Democratic Republic of the Congo, the epicenter of the quake global health emergency announced on a still growing one Mpox The head of the World Health Organization said the country receiving its first shipment of 99,000 vaccines for the virus responsible for the outbreak on Thursday, and a second shipment of 101,000 vaccines is expected on Saturday. Said,

Congolese health officials told CBS News they hope to begin vaccinating frontline health workers and people in close contact with confirmed cases by early October, but logistical challenges make early vaccinations unlikely.

Congolese officials say they have struggled to diagnose patients and provide basic care in the vast country of 100 million, where a weak, under-resourced health care system also suffers from stigma associated with the virus. It was earlier known as monkeypox,

A shortage of diagnostic materials and basic drugs to treat the virus, which could improve survival rates, has also hampered efforts to contain the outbreak.

Greg Ramm, Congo country director for the Save the Children charity, told CBS News that cases of ampox are still skyrocketing. He lamented that the crisis is getting so little attention globally, saying the world only really starts paying attention when diseases like the previous pandemic start to spread. Ebola outbreakspread beyond the borders of the Congo.

List of challenges for the MPox vaccination campaign

The first batch of about 200,000 vaccines donated by the European Union will be sent to six targeted provinces. Until they are administered, they must be kept at a constant temperature of minus 130 degrees Fahrenheit, known as cold chain storage — an additional challenge for a developing country.

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the U.N.’s World Health Organization, said the WHO had “supported the government in establishing the cold chain necessary for the supply of vaccines.”

Congo is a country the size of Western Europe. It is rich in natural resources, including highly sought-after cobalt and copper, and is home to the world’s second-largest rainforest. But those resources have been fought over by militant groups for decades and, despite its abundance of natural wealth, the World Bank ranks Congo among the five poorest countries in the world.

The majority of Congo’s people have never benefited from the country’s resources, with approximately 75% of the population living on just $2 a day or less.

Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi has set up a $10 million fund to combat the outbreak. Hospitals in the worst-affected areas have reported running out of medicines every day, with officials saying they are also facing challenges providing enough food to patients.

Doctors from several charity organizations working in the country told CBS News they are overworked and running low on supplies, even having to use tents and mattresses on the floors of makeshift isolation wards to treat a steady influx of patients.

Vaccines that are desperately needed are expensive. Health officials told CBS News that 2022 ampox outbreakManufacturer Bavarian Nordic was selling its vaccine for $110 a dose.

Jean Kaseya, director-general of the Africa Centres for Disease Control, has said the continent now needs about 10 million doses to stop the spread of the virus.

“We have to talk about giving 2 million vaccines to Congo, which costs millions of dollars,” Ram said.

The first few thousand vaccines will be prioritized for health care workers and contacts of known cases, so the initial administration can do little to prevent the spread of the virus in Congolese communities.

Ampox initially resembles measles or chickenpox on the skin, with pus-filled lesions and flu-like symptoms. It is a more serious health concern for people with weakened immune systems, including young children and pregnant women. There is no rapid test to diagnose ampox, and Congo has only six laboratories equipped to process PCR tests, thanks largely to capacity built up during the epidemic. Coronavirus pandemic,

The cost of PCR tests is also very high in most parts of Africa.

Treatment of the virus requires antibiotics for bacterial infections caused by wounds, painkillers for fevers, and proper nutrition and clean water. These basic needs are a daily challenge at healthcare sites in Congo.

Deadly outbreak for Congo’s children

Most of the country’s schools, which reopened this week, lack running water, disinfectant and soap – basic items that can help prevent the spread of the virus. More than 600 children have died from ampox this year in Congo alone. Young people are more vulnerable because of other prevalent health problems in the country, including malaria, measles and other childhood illnesses.

Ampox was discovered in monkeys in Denmark in 1958 and was named monkeypox. It was first found in humans in 1970, in what was then known as Zaire (now Congo).

Congo accounts for 90 per cent of the total ampox cases worldwide, where people are testing positive for both the new clade 1b and clade 1a strains. The clade 1b strain was first detected in the country in September 2023 and has recently been detected in 13 African countries.

There have been more than 655 deaths from the virus in Congo and nearly 20,000 suspected cases.

Health care workers who spoke to CBS News said they fear the actual number of cases is much higher, as they can only be easily reached in certain parts of the country.

Stigma remains a major problem, with communities often turning to traditional healers before turning to Western medicine. During the Ebola outbreak, it was common for local communities to hide cases of the virus from healthcare workers, with some claiming the virus only came from Western healthcare workers in their familiar white suits.

Ampox threatens Congolese cities and IDP camps

The outbreak in Congo has so far been confined to a few areas, but there are fears the virus will hit bigger cities, such as the densely populated capital Kinshasa, home to some 15 million people. There have been only a handful of confirmed cases in the city so far.

There are also camps for internally displaced people in the eastern Goma region, where about 1 million people have taken refuge — most of them fleeing fighting between various militia groups plaguing Congo. Efforts are underway to educate displaced people about ampox, but healthcare workers told CBS News that it can be difficult to distinguish, at least at first, from other skin diseases, such as scabies, prevalent in the tent camps because of a lack of sanitation and clean water.

As the rainy season approaches, health care workers worry that IDP camps could face a severe storm, with increased mortality from the constantly mutating ampox virus, the possibility of endemic cholera and measles outbreaks, as well as shortages of food, water and medicine, and lack of basic sanitation.

“This is a forgotten community to the world,” Lindis Hurun, a project coordinator for the charity Doctors Without Borders in Congo, told CBS News. She added that most people living in the camps were more worried about surviving the next week than contracting ampoule.

Hurun spoke to CBS News after visiting an IDP camp, where she met a woman who told her she was faced with an impossible choice: stay in the camp with her family under appalling conditions and face health risks, or return to her village amid heavy fighting between militias.

sarah carter

Sarah Carter is an award-winning CBS News producer based in Johannesburg, South Africa. She has been with CBS News since 1997, having freelanced for organizations such as The New York Times, National Geographic, PBS Frontline, and NPR.