MPOX: Should we prepare for another pandemic like COVID?

CGTN Europe

The World Health Organisation says mpox is a global emergency. The disease has spread rapidly inside the DR Congo and across a number of African countries, killing up to 3% of those infected. It is spread by contact, including sexual transmission. CGTN Europe asked Salim Abdool Karim, chair of the Africa Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Emergency Consultative Group whether it poses a similar threat to that of the COVID pandemic.  #mpox #healthemergency

Transcript

00:00So because COVID-19, the SARS-CoV-2 virus, is spread through the respiratory route,

00:07it has a very high replication rate, what we call the reproductive number.

00:13You get from one person being infected, you get three, four, five people becoming infected,

00:18and the number rapidly grows.

00:20In mpox, you don't have that.

00:22In mpox, because it's not spread through coughing and breathing,

00:27it's spread through sexual transmission, and it's a very slow-spreading virus.

00:32This is not going to present itself as an explosive problem like anything we saw in COVID-19.

00:39Instead, what we will see is a simmering problem.

00:43It will start spreading to a range of countries.

00:46It will start locally spreading in those settings.

00:49We're going to need to institute measures to control it.

00:52So it's going to be a different kind of pandemic.

00:56But what it's going to do is that it's very likely that it's going to spread quite widely.

01:02It's already doing that in several countries.

01:04In Africa, its potential to spread beyond Africa is simply there,

01:09and we're likely to see much more of it.

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