The World Health Organisation (WHO) is appealing for £66million’s worth of funding in the next six months to try and contain the outbreak of mpox.
The organisation says the money will be used to work with countries, partners, and stakeholders to help stop the disease from spreading further.
In its appeal, the WHO said: “WHO needs US$ 87.4 million (£66million) over 6 months, from September 2024 to February 2025, to work with countries, partners and other stakeholders to stop and contain the current outbreak of mpox.
“This money will be used by WHO to implement critical activities outlined in the global strategic preparedness and response plan (SPRP) released the day before, on 26 August 2024.
“The SPRP is a comprehensive framework developed by WHO to guide the global response to mpox, emphasizing surveillance, research, equitable access to medical countermeasures, and community empowerment.
“The required funds will be used across WHO headquarters, regional and country offices, to enable coordination of the response, provide technical assistance, run operations, and deliver medical supplies.
“WHO calls on donors to urgently fund the full extent of the mpox response to prevent further spread and protect those most at risk.”
Mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, is an infectious disease that causes painful rashes, fever, headaches, muscle aches, fatigue and enlarged lymph nodes.
Most people with the disease recover, but it causes them to become very sick.
The outbreak began in 2022 and is still ongoing, predominantly in Africa.
Mammals such as squirrels and monkeys are susceptible to the virus.
The disease spreads mainly through human-to-human contact.
Dr Dimie Ogoina, an infectious diseases expert at Niger Delta University Hospital in Nigeria and the chair of the WHO’s mpox emergency committee, has said that scientists are “working blindly” in Africa to track the disease.
She added: “We don’t understand our outbreak very well, and if we don’t understand our outbreak very well we will have difficulty addressing the problem in terms of transmission dynamics, the severity of the disease, risk factors of the disease.
“And I worry about the fact that the virus seems to be mutating and producing new strains.”
The disease is spreading rapidly out of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where there have been more than 18,000 suspected Clade 1 and Clade 1b cases, to areas where there is a lack of funding to track the disease.
