The World Health Organization has declared mpox to be a global public health emergency. The viral disease, formerly known as monkeypox, spreads through close physical contact and can cause fevers, rashes and extremely painful lesions. The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also declared a public health emergency over mpox earlier this week after logging over 15,000 cases. Scientists say this strain of mpox has a fatality rate of around 5% in adults and double that in children. For more, we speak with Nigerian journalist Zubaida Baba Ibrahim, who says there is still a shortage of mpox vaccines in Africa two years after the last major outbreak. “We need to decolonize global health, where we’re not just waiting for vaccines from somewhere else to come to Africa,” she says. “African leaders need to wake up and realize that this is dire and it needs proactive measures.”
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