The European Commission and the Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) have launched plans to ramp up testing for Mpox as African states struggle to increases vaccination and testing rates.
The Partnership to Accelerate Mpox Testing and Sequencing in Africa (PAMTA) initiative “will support comprehensive diagnostics capabilities and resilience against future health threats,” said the commission’s Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA) in a statement on Thursday (31 July).
It will fund the procurement and distribution of over 150,000 tests.
Officials say that it will also support local manufacturing by encouraging the production and validation of Mpox testing kits within Africa.
The Mpox epidemic in central Africa is still not fully under control, one year after the World Health Organisation labelled it as a public health emergency of international concern, and despite 2.9m vaccines having been pledged by the international community.
HERA has led the coordination of vaccine procurement and donation among EU member states, with Spain, France and Germany pledging more than 700,000 doses of the vaccine, over 600,000 of which had been delivered to key African countries by mid-2025.
Africa CDC reports that while Mpox cases have declined across much of Africa, numbers are up in DR Congo, the epicentre of the disease, which has seen a near 20 percent spike in recent weeks.
Africa CDC officials say that more testing as well as a “tireless intensification of community-based surveillance” is needed to curb Mpox cases.
Testing for mpox remains low in DR Congo.
Meanwhile, Dr Ngashi Ngongo, chief of staff at Africa CDC, has warned that there are serious shortages of Mpox vaccines in Uganda and Sierra Leone.
There have also been major delays in getting the vaccine shots into people’s arms, a repeat of the slow pace of obtaining and delivering Covid-19 vaccines during the 2020-2022 pandemic.
Only 664,000 people had been vaccinated against mpox by mid-June, according to Africa CDC data. This, and the 2.9m vaccines, fall way short of the 6.4m doses that were needed between March and August this year, say Africa CDC officials.
The commission has made Africa's new public health order part of its own global health strategy, and is one of the main financial supporters of Africa CDC.
In March 2024, meanwhile, the EU promised technical and financial support to establish the second pan-African health agency, the African Medicines Agency (AMA), designed to regulate the continent’s pharmaceutical and medical devices sector.
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Benjamin Fox is a seasoned reporter and editor, previously working for fellow Brussels publication Euractiv. His reporting has also been published in the Guardian, the East African, Euractiv, Private Eye and Africa Confidential, among others. He heads up the AU-EU section at EUobserver, based in Nairobi, Kenya.
Benjamin Fox is a seasoned reporter and editor, previously working for fellow Brussels publication Euractiv. His reporting has also been published in the Guardian, the East African, Euractiv, Private Eye and Africa Confidential, among others. He heads up the AU-EU section at EUobserver, based in Nairobi, Kenya.