In this center for the prevention of Lille center , there are clearly some Belgian accents among the people who come to the reception to receive a vaccine once morest monkeypox. While the health authorities, across Quiévrain, have set strict eligibility criteria, we vaccinate here all those who wish, regardless of their nationality.
Same phenomenon in Canada, where thousands of foreigners, including hundreds of Americans, flock to the vaccines offered to everyone in Montreal, in a context of scarcity of doses in the United States, which unfortunately had millions of doses expired. . The Quebec metropolis made the decision, from the start of its vaccination campaign, to accept anyone considering themselves at risk. Mainly men having sex with other men or multiple partners.
Global emergency
While more than 32,000 cases have already been identified worldwide, including children in contact with infected parents, observed deaths and that the experts still have uncertainties as to the mode of contamination, the concern rose sharply during the summer. Particularly in the LGBTIQ community, when big cities organize gay prides and music festivals, but not only.
This new epidemic was indeed declared by the World Health Organization (WHO), on July 23, “ global public health emergency “. Its director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, called for “equitable access to vaccines for all individuals and all communities, in all regions of the world”. In practice, this call for solidarity comes up once morest the desire of States to cover their own population.
Shortage
Twenty months following the deployment of the vaccination once morest Covid, the same phenomenon of scarcity is emerging at present, because there is only one manufacturer of the vaccine (Imvanex in Europe), the Danish Bavarian Nordic. The company has benefited greatly in the past from its ties to the US government which, following the September 11 attacks and the anthrax letter bombs, prompted many laboratories to work on vaccines once morest smallpox or anthrax.
The company has received massive orders in recent weeks, from the EU via its new health authority HERA, from member states of the Union (such as France), from the United Kingdom, from the United States, from Canada. “But we make sure to serve everyone, including the smallest countries,” says Rolf Sass Sorensen, spokesman for Bavarian Nordic, whose stock market price has tripled since the beginning of May, by telephone.
The African continent fears being left behind once more, like during the Covid pandemic. “We have not yet received any doses, but we persist in contacting the relevant institutions and our international partners to get some,” said Ahmed Ogwell Ouma, director of the Africa Centers for disease Control, which depends on the WHO, last week. African Union.
Packaging in vials
Bavarian Nordic, at its Kvistgard site, not far from the famous center of modern art in Louisiana, north of Copenhagen, has a gigantic reserve of vaccines frozen at -80° degrees, the equivalent of around 10 million doses. But this stock, of which the “large part” belongs to the United States, is in bulk: it is not yet packaged in vials. This tedious work takes time, which is why Bavarian Nordic is negotiating with an American company to help it. But this collaboration will not bear fruit for several months. The company plans to increase its capacity if necessary, but this too will take time.
Faced with the current demand for vaccination which exceeds the offer, the American health authorities authorized on August 9 a new procedure for injecting the vaccine which should make it possible to protect five people with a single dose. To do this, the injection must be performed intradermally, between the upper layers of the skin, and no longer subcutaneously, deeper. In France, the health authorities have recommended extending the time between the first and second injection (except for the immunocompromised), so, there too, to protect more people.
New name
In parallel, the WHO has launched a wide online consultative process to change the name of the disease, considered misleading and discriminatory, since the virus is not linked only to monkeys but has been demonstrated in many animals and in especially in rodents. It was the Danish researchers who discovered the disease in primates in the 1950s who dubbed it “monkey pox”.
According to the New York City Health Commissioner, this terminology is unfortunately also “rooted in a racist and painful history for communities of color”. In a letter to the WHO, he recalled the negative effects of the false information that flourished during the appearance of the AIDS virus or the racism suffered by Asian communities following the appearance of Sars-CoV-2, called by Donald Trump “Chinese virus”. Finally, attacks on monkeys have been observed in Brazil: some were allegedly poisoned, others were thrown stones.
