Monkeypox: AIDS Conference experts say current global response is insufficient

A panel of scientists and activists at the AIDS 2022 conference in Montreal over the weekend urged governments around the world to increase resources to fight monkeypox outbreaks.

The appeal came as international experts gathered on Sunday to discuss the need to avoid mistakes made during the early HIV response.

Marina Klein, research director and professor of medicine in the Department of Infectious and Chronic Viral Diseases at McGill University in Que., said Montreal can set an example as it becomes crucial to improve the global response to monkeypox.

“In Montreal, there was a very quick response to the rising infections with the introduction of a very liberal and open, accessible vaccine,” Klein said in an interview on Sunday.

Montreal was the first epicenter of the outbreaks in Canada, with around 360 confirmed cases as of July 29. There are now more than 800 confirmed cases of monkeypox in the country.

But the infection rate has started to stabilize, plateauing in Montreal, Klein said.

“Some of that came directly from the health department, but also with community involvement, which was key to educating people about the importance of the vaccine,” she said.

However, Klein said she worries that other provinces, particularly Saskatchewan, won’t have the same ease in connecting with vulnerable communities.

“Although only two cases have been identified to date … we know that there have been many challenges in Saskatchewan, both with HIV and with sexually transmitted infections, particularly among vulnerable populations, including Indigenous communities,” Klein said.

She stressed the importance of community engagement and an operational vaccine response, but also the need to study the extent of monkeypox transmission.

“We responded quickly, but nowhere in the world responded quickly enough to address this and get rid of it in the short timeframe that it took us,” she said.

“Now we have to switch gears and think about how we can control this in the long term.”

Her criticism was echoed by several other speakers at Sunday’s conference.

Keletso Makofane, a public health researcher at Harvard University, called the global response to monkeypox “worse than the initial HIV response.”

Over 19,000 cases of monkeypox have been reported from 78 countries in the past few months, mostly in men who have sex with other men.

“We knew enough to have done a lot better to contain this thing,” Makofane said in an interview, adding that general fatigue from battling COVID-19 made the monkeypox response slower than it should have been .

Makofane also condemned thousands of vaccine doses sitting around Denmark as the number of cases continues to rise.

Unlike the numerous companies that have manufactured COVID-19 vaccines, Bavarian Nordic is the sole manufacturer of the monkeypox vaccine in Denmark.

“It’s scandalous and worse than HIV in the sense that we have the tools to respond to it,” Makofane said.

dr Meg Doherty, director of the World Health Organization’s global HIV, hepatitis and STI programs, told attendees that an equitable approach was crucial to ensure the tools are available not just to wealthier countries, but also in Africa, where monkeypox is endemic traditionally occur.

“Thirty-five countries have accessed or requested the vaccines… is there a risk that countries making (requests) for access will be from rich countries? That’s a very possible risk,” Doherty said on Sunday.

“We want justice. We cannot have a monkeypox response that only affects Britain, Canada and the United States.”

The international AIDS 2022 conference – from July 29 to Tuesday – is expected to attract more than 9,000 delegates from around the world, with another 2,000 registered to attend remotely.

This report from The Canadian Press was first published on July 31, 2022.