Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: A mutated strain of the highly contagious and potentially deadly
Speaker 2: empox virus that started in the DRC has now spread
Speaker 2: to several African nations and infected thousands. The head of
Speaker 2: the World Health Organization now says potential spread of disease
Speaker 2: within Africa and beyond is quote very worrying.
Speaker 3: Today, the Emergency Communtee met and advised me that in
Speaker 3: its view, the situation constitutes a publical emergency of international concern.
Speaker 3: I have accepted that advice.
Speaker 2: More than fifteen thousand cases have been reported so far
Speaker 2: in the DRC, but at least six other African countries
Speaker 2: have seen cases, and Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda have
Speaker 2: reported their first ever empox diagnoses.
Speaker 1: We now have cross border transmission and the virus is
Speaker 1: now moving into countries where it hadn't been before. It
Speaker 1: seems to be almost all mostly human to human transmission.
Speaker 2: On this episode of the Next Africa Podcast, we'll ask
Speaker 2: how well the region is responding to the empox outbreak
Speaker 2: and whether economies here can cope with another major health emergency.
Speaker 4: The world cannot afford to don a bland eye to
Speaker 4: this crisis.
Speaker 2: I'm Jennifer's Abasaga and this is the Next Africa Podcast,
Speaker 2: bringing you one story each week from the continent, driving
Speaker 2: the future of global growth with the context only Bloomberg
Speaker 2: can provide. Jenni's Q has been following the developments very
Speaker 2: closely for Bloomberg News and I'm delighted to say she's
Speaker 2: joining us now. Hi, Jennis, it's been a busy week
Speaker 2: for you.
Speaker 1: Indeed, it's been quite a few big developments.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for being here. Let's just start here
Speaker 2: because emparks, obviously, as you're reporting now, it'es hit the
Speaker 2: headlines in twenty twenty two when outbreaks were reported all
Speaker 2: over the world. What's different about this current outbreak we're seeing.
Speaker 5: Africa got no vaccines back in twenty twenty two and
Speaker 5: twenty twenty three, even though emparks is endemic in parts
Speaker 5: of the continents, and the strain that we are seeing
Speaker 5: now in this outbreak that is particularly concerning actually links
Speaker 5: to the endemic strain.
Speaker 1: It's a offshoot of the endemic strain, and that's.
Speaker 5: Called CLAID one, and CLAID one is a more virulent
Speaker 5: version and we are now seeing this mutated strain and
Speaker 5: it's spreading. We've seen it emanating out of Central Africa
Speaker 5: spread east and scientists are scrambling to get enough data
Speaker 5: on what exactly is going on. Surveillance is fairly sketchy.
Speaker 5: It's a difficult area to work in, and there is
Speaker 5: evidence that it is like the outbreak in twenty twenty
Speaker 5: two and twenty three.
Speaker 1: There is an element.
Speaker 5: Of sexual transmission, but it is transmitting and spreading well
Speaker 5: beyond that specific mode. So we've got the most number
Speaker 5: of cases in children, although it's spreading faster in sexual networks,
Speaker 5: and it's very difficult to get a grasp of because
Speaker 5: of the multiple modes. I asked the WHO when they
Speaker 5: made the announcement this week whether there was an airborne component,
Speaker 5: and they have no confirmed evidence that is the case,
Speaker 5: but they haven't ruled it out. They are looking at
Speaker 5: all possibilities at this stage.
Speaker 2: Well, and could that potentially be why we're seeing it
Speaker 2: spread across borders as rapidly as it is.
Speaker 5: It seems that the most likely pathway is still close
Speaker 5: contact across borders.
Speaker 1: Could well be We've had a lot of roads.
Speaker 5: Built in Africa and truckers moving across borders are known
Speaker 5: to be one way that this has transmitted. We've also
Speaker 5: got a lot of remote mining sites and camps housing
Speaker 5: hundreds of thousands of conflict displaced Congolese where once those
Speaker 5: roads are built, you get a quicker movement to cities.
Speaker 5: And it's people that really move these kind of viruses along,
Speaker 5: and as we've seen with other pandemics, we're all interconnected.
Speaker 5: It really probably takes a handful of people who've been
Speaker 5: working in these areas getting on a flight to other
Speaker 5: parts of the world and things can move very quickly
Speaker 5: from there.
Speaker 2: Jenne, as someone who's covered the healthcare space for quite
Speaker 2: a while, what do you make of the reaction, because
Speaker 2: it felt like it was sort of a light switch
Speaker 2: and it went from really sort of teetering behind the
Speaker 2: headlines to now it is the top story. Really, do
Speaker 2: you think governments are now taking it seriously?
Speaker 1: So?
Speaker 5: Africa certainly has been left behind before, and the Africa
Speaker 5: Center for Disease Control and Prevention has acted this week
Speaker 5: as well as the who they'll be coordinating things on
Speaker 5: behalf of the various governments. The NGOs have been calling
Speaker 5: out about this poor months at least eight months ago,
Speaker 5: this particular strain was identified, but to be fair, since
Speaker 5: the WHO convened the panel last week, it's moved pretty quickly.
Speaker 5: Often a panel was sit for days and yesterday they
Speaker 5: met for the first time and in European time. By
Speaker 5: the evening they had already made the declaration and Africa
Speaker 5: CDC declared a continent wide version public health emergency the
Speaker 5: day before the WHO decided on calling the Global virgin.
Speaker 5: It was the first time Africa CDC had declared an
Speaker 5: emergency since receiving this power from its member states last year,
Speaker 5: and the regional body has rarely made an effort to
Speaker 5: get into the driving seat this time around. The Director
Speaker 5: General of Africa CDC went so far this week in
Speaker 5: saying that Africa didn't get appropriate support in twenty twenty
Speaker 5: two and twenty three and what the continent is facing
Speaker 5: today is really a consequence of having no assistance.
Speaker 2: And you mentioned that glows health emergency that was declared
Speaker 2: on August fourteenth from the WHO. Give us some insight, Janets.
Speaker 2: What does this do?
Speaker 1: So?
Speaker 5: It prompts all the member states to report, It improves surveillance,
Speaker 5: it helps release funds so effectively marshaling resources. WHO this
Speaker 5: week in their briefings said that they are figuring out
Speaker 5: the detail still and we will get further details in
Speaker 5: the coming days.
Speaker 1: Hopefully it will mean that countries in the West who.
Speaker 5: Have stockpiles at least some of them do from the
Speaker 5: twenty twenty to twenty three art.
Speaker 1: Breaks there that they will share their vaccines.
Speaker 5: That all being said, it's not like the who can
Speaker 5: ready force their member states to do a whole lot
Speaker 5: at this point, but it certainly gets attention and it
Speaker 5: creates space for talks to be happening so that these
Speaker 5: resources are used in the best possible way.
Speaker 2: Stick with US Janets when we come back, we want
Speaker 2: to talk about what the impact of this outbreak could
Speaker 2: actually be based on smoothysus meent that you were just
Speaker 2: giving us, and also whether there have been lessons learned
Speaker 2: from COVID or not so far off from that global
Speaker 2: health emergency. So we'll talk about that after the break.
Speaker 2: So welcome back today. We're discussing the m Park's outbreak
Speaker 2: in the DRC and also that hitting over countries across
Speaker 2: the continent. We have JENSQ who's been following this story
Speaker 2: very closely. Jenne is, do we know yet what the
Speaker 2: economic impact of this potentially could be so far it
Speaker 2: couldn't have a similar effect as COVID did to economies
Speaker 2: across the continent.
Speaker 5: One of the lessons I think both the agencies, the
Speaker 5: EFFICACYDC and the who learned from COVID was that as
Speaker 5: far as possible, it is preferable not to close borders,
Speaker 5: and so at this stage both of them have said
Speaker 5: that they do not see a need for that. There
Speaker 5: are certainly upping surveillance borders, but they do not want
Speaker 5: to cause the economic hardships that were caused by the
Speaker 5: reaction to COVID. The logistics are definitely tricky. The DRC,
Speaker 5: where most of the cases are at the moment, it's
Speaker 5: a very big country. As I said, there are a
Speaker 5: lot of displaced people. They're some very remote areas. But
Speaker 5: there's also a lot of stigma related to empocs. In
Speaker 5: the twenty twenty two to twenty three outbreak that was global,
Speaker 5: most of the cases were in sexual networks, predominantly men
Speaker 5: who have sex with men, and in parts of Africa,
Speaker 5: this is not just frowned upon. There are some countries
Speaker 5: where it can actually attract the death penalty, and so.
Speaker 1: They are trying to think.
Speaker 5: On the ground, many of the NGOs are trying to
Speaker 5: work with people with communities to get rid of that stigma.
Speaker 1: In addition to that, there is a need to help people.
Speaker 5: Not to be suspicious of vaccinations and other measures that
Speaker 5: might be needed. So there is a lot of work
Speaker 5: to be done, and the WHO, Mike Rine made it
Speaker 5: very clear in a recent briefing that the tide only
Speaker 5: turned on the previous outbreak, specifically in the US and Europe,
Speaker 5: when the most affected communities were properly engaged, and there
Speaker 5: is a lot of work to be done on that.
Speaker 2: When you talk about vaccinations and skepticism around vaccinations, how
Speaker 2: might that play into a potential vaccination program that we
Speaker 2: do see with this strain.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so vaccination programs probably facing two main issues. The
Speaker 5: one is the logistics, which as said is tricky in
Speaker 5: many of these countries because they are large countries and
Speaker 5: don't have a lot of infrastructure. They also generally just
Speaker 5: very fragile health systems. Africa is arguably the consonants that
Speaker 5: is most effects about global warming, and so the spread
Speaker 5: of other diseases like cholera and malaria have increased. We
Speaker 5: already know that sub Saharan Africa has the world's highest
Speaker 5: number of HIV cases, and that is comobidity, which has
Speaker 5: been highlighted as a big risk factor, both because people's
Speaker 5: immune systems are weaker if they have untreated HIV, but
Speaker 5: also because of the risk of somebody potentially harboring an
Speaker 5: impacts virus where there might not be notably ill the
Speaker 5: whole time, but the virus is sitting there latently and mutating,
Speaker 5: and so those risks are real. And I do think
Speaker 5: that beyond the logistics as we refer to this community engagement,
Speaker 5: explaining to people that giving a child of vaccinations not
Speaker 5: because you are trying to put a tattoo on their
Speaker 5: arm effectively to say that they are going to be
Speaker 5: a victim of sexual violence, for example, but that this
Speaker 5: is just a smart way of ensuring that they are
Speaker 5: protected preemptively.
Speaker 2: And it could potentially keep fatality rates from going up.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: Could that potentially have an impact then on what we
Speaker 2: actually see in people just getting very sick and not
Speaker 2: dying from it.
Speaker 5: Essentially, Yeah, I mean the vaccines are pretty effective. They
Speaker 5: stem from small pox vaccines, and all the pox viruses
Speaker 5: are in the same sort of family. And when we
Speaker 5: spoke to the Very Nordic that is the company that
Speaker 5: provides or makes the main vaccine that's been approved so far.
Speaker 5: I asked whether with mutations there were confidence that the
Speaker 5: vaccine would still be effective, and the answer is yes.
Speaker 5: Even one shot gives you about eighty percent protection, which
Speaker 5: is decent. The WHO and Africa CDC have gone on
Speaker 5: to say that as important as vaccines are and as
Speaker 5: much as we need them on the ground in Africa,
Speaker 5: they aren't the only measure. Antivirals when you're already sick
Speaker 5: can help, and even there is evidence that something as
Speaker 5: simple as a decent disinfectant that you would use at
Speaker 5: home can kill this virus. Again, Mike grind from the
Speaker 5: WHO made this point that if we act quickly, we
Speaker 5: can contain this and.
Speaker 2: So then jen As I know this is a fast
Speaker 2: moving story as this virus is also spreading quite fast,
Speaker 2: But what is it that you're paying attention to next,
Speaker 2: whether that's from the WHO the Africa CDC, I mean,
Speaker 2: what is it that we should be watching out for next?
Speaker 5: When we start saying sustained human human transmission in countries
Speaker 5: where they've currently got just a handful of cases, that
Speaker 5: is something that we would need to pay attention to
Speaker 5: once it really settles into a community, it does make
Speaker 5: it harder to eradicate, and then of course any evidence
Speaker 5: that it is moving rapidly in other parts.
Speaker 1: Of the world.
Speaker 5: We really want to see the entire situation being handled
Speaker 5: differently to what we saw with COVID and the previous
Speaker 5: impox outbreak. I mean, quite frankly, I think we failed
Speaker 5: in both of those. In the response, I think there
Speaker 5: have been lessons that have been learned. There are pathways
Speaker 5: for vaccination programs that could be tapped into again that
Speaker 5: were set up during COVID, And to echo what's the
Speaker 5: Director General for Africa CDC said in his recent briefing
Speaker 5: is that we want to make sure first and foremost
Speaker 5: at this point that every African is protected. Every person,
Speaker 5: whether you're in a city or a remote area, has access,
Speaker 5: and that is what we're aiming for. It would be
Speaker 5: very disheartening if we saw countries that already have stockpiles
Speaker 5: refusing to share, and countries that are less affluent not
Speaker 5: being able to get vaccines.
Speaker 1: Because of affordability issues.
Speaker 5: This is not something that I see as a fault
Speaker 5: of the manufacturing companies they've got to still be able
Speaker 5: to be viable, and they have a very not already
Speaker 5: given a donation, but they can't donate all of their Traditionally,
Speaker 5: the model with vaccinations is that the countries who can
Speaker 5: pay subsidize effectively those that can't. And in this case
Speaker 5: the numbers aren't big enough and the countries that need
Speaker 5: it most are less likely to be able to afford
Speaker 5: the full price, which the Africa CDC has currently pigged
Speaker 5: at about one hundred dollars a dose. So we really
Speaker 5: do hope that we will see more sharing, we will
Speaker 5: see the community, international community really figuring out's a base
Speaker 5: away than what we've seen in other pandemics.
Speaker 2: Especially when you factor in the economic situation for a
Speaker 2: lot of these countries. Janis Q, thank you so much
Speaker 2: for joining us and for your recording on this. Really
Speaker 2: appreciate it. And you can read all the latest coverage
Speaker 2: on the outbreak on Bloomberg News platforms now and with
Speaker 2: the memories of the damage that COVID had on the
Speaker 2: economies and Africans themselves still fresh in the minds of many,
Speaker 2: hopefully we'll see governments avoid this fast spreading virus having
Speaker 2: similar effects across the continent. This program was produced by
Speaker 2: Adrian Bradley. Don't forget to follow and review the show
Speaker 2: wherever you usually get your podcast. I'm Jennifer's Abasaja. Thanks
Speaker 2: so much for listening.