Why mpox vaccines are only just arriving in Africa after two years

LONDON –

The first 10,000 mpox vaccines are finally due to arrive this week in Africa, where a dangerous new strain of the virus — which has afflicted people there for decades — has caused global alarm.

The slow arrival of the shots — which have already been made available in more than 70 countries outside Africa — showed that lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic about global healthcare inequities have been slow to bring change, half a dozen public health officials and scientists said.

Among the hurdles: It took the World Health Organization (WHO) until this month to start officially the process needed to give poor countries easy access to large quantities of the vaccines via international agencies.