The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization (WHO) have declared the latest outbreak of mpox in Africa a health emergency. An epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo has spread to neighbouring countries and more than 1,400 new mpox cases were detected in just one week. Vaccination is one of the key strategies to contain the disease.
Virologist Anna-Lise Williamson unpacks how vaccines have evolved and who should be first in line in any vaccination campaign. What vaccines are there against mpox? Monkeypox virus (MPXV), the virus that causes the mpox disease, is related to the virus that causes smallpox. Besides the viruses causing smallpox and mpox there are a number of others in the orthopoxviruses group that infect humans, including cowpox virus, camelpox virus and vaccinia virus .
The smallpox vaccine can protect against both strains of MPXV: clades I and II. Smallpox was eradicated worldwide in 1980 after an intensive global vaccination campaign. The last smallpox vaccinations in Africa were administered around 1980.
This means that a younger, unvaccinated population is now susceptible to MPXV infection. The old types of smallpox vaccine were based on the vaccinia virus and they can have serious side effects and in rare cases can even be fatal . Smallpox eradication meant there was no longer routine vaccination to prevent this disease.
However the threat of the use of this virus as a biological weapon, or alternatively an unf.
