Central African health workers fighting mpox face lack of vaccines and medication

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• Judy Woodruff:

  The World Health Organization has decided that the virus formerly known as monkeypox will now be designated mpox.

  However one refers to with, the virus spread globally earlier this year, bringing fears of another pandemic, many Western countries fought off the outbreak with treatments and vaccines. But in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or DRC, the virus remains endemic. And front-line workers there are trying to prevent it from once again going global.

  Special correspondent Benedict Moran and video journalist Jorgen Samso sent us this report from the DRC's capital, Kinshasa.

• Benedict Moran:

  In may, monkeypox spread across the globe, eventually reaching at least 75 countries, including to Europe and the U.S.

  Today, after widespread use of antiviral medicine and a preventative vaccine, global reported case numbers are dramatically down. But, here in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the virus remains a threat. In this clinic on the outskirts of Kinshasa, three young children are suspected of being infected.

  One of them is 2-year-old Kitenga Demichelle (ph). She has a fever and is vomiting. Painful sores cover her body.

  Dr. Tresor Gylefwa is treating her.

• Dr. Tresor Gylefwa, Bethesda Medical Center (through translator):

  The children showed up here with complaints of fever, vomiting and rashes. We checked up on them, but already, with symptoms like these, we suspect it's monkeypox.

• Benedict Moran:

  Here, far from Western capitals, there are no antivirals and no preventative vaccines available to patients.

• Dr. Tresor Gylefwa (through translator):

  the only thing we can do is treat the fever and the skin rash. As for the rest, we need help for more specialized doctors to know what to do in order to better help these kids.

• Benedict Moran:

  The Democratic Republic of the Congo is the country most affected by monkeypox, and it has continually reported cases over the past five decades. For the past few years, it has seen a surge in cases.

  Despite this surge, the country actually has few tools at its disposal to fight the virus. Tecovirimat, an antiviral used widely as a treatment, is authorized for use in the European Union and in the U.S., but not in the Congo or anywhere in Africa. And not a single dose of the smallpox vaccine, proven to be effective against monkeypox, is available on the African continent.

  It's a phenomenon some are calling medical racism.

• Dr. Boghuma Kabisen Titanji, Emory University:

  There's no profit in it. And that's where racism comes in.

• Benedict Moran:

  Dr. Boghuma Titanji is an assistant professor of medicine at Emory University.

• Dr. Boghuma Kabisen Titanji:

  That's where disenfranchisement of people who are poor, who do not necessarily have a loud voice to actually advocate for these things comes in.

  There is a certain aspect of people still being very much stuck in the mind-set of, what is in it for me, as in, why do we need to invest in malaria, in T.B., in HIV, in monkeypox, if it's happening on the other side of the planet?

• Benedict Moran:

  Dr. Nicole Hoff spends much of her professional life encouraging the world to care, even if here is the other side of the planet. Hoff is an American researcher at UCLA and has been studying monkeypox in the DRC for more than a decade.

• Dr. Nicole Hoff, UCLA:

  So, really, we're seeing cases kind of all over the country at the moment.

  Recently, the most, the largest outbreak that we have seen has been in Tunda, which is the Maniema Province. But then we have also seen a number of cases up north, closer to Kisangani and up in this area.

• Benedict Moran:

  Because monkeypox almost never caused an infection outside of Africa, it usually remained a distant threat. That meant no money for research.

• Dr. Nicole Hoff:

  There's been almost no funding, especially in DRC, for monkeypox.

  The cases of monkeypox have really stemmed from here. And so I think to really understand what's going on with transmission, what's going on with the virus, what's going on with mutations, what's going on possibly for the future of monkeypox, really, this is your base.

• Benedict Moran:

  After years of neglect, Western donors are now trying to play catchup. A new $3 million research project funded in part by the U.S. Department of Defense hopes to improve virus surveillance.

  That starts here at Congo's National Laboratory. It's the only lab in the country that tests for monkeypox. But samples sometimes take weeks to arrive here. Congo is the size of Western Europe, with poor infrastructure. By the time results are in, patients have either recovered or, in about 10 percent of cases, have died.

  Dr. Thierry Kalonji is the assistant director of the National Institute for Biomedical Research in Kinshasa.

  Dr. Thierry Kalonji, Assistant Director, National Institute for Biomedical Research, Kinshasa (through translator): The delay between the start of symptoms and when we receive a lab sample is averaging 21 days. I'm talking about three weeks, and the disease itself usually lasts from four to five weeks.

• Benedict Moran:

  By improving surveillance here, donors hope to stop the virus in its tracks and prevent it from once again going global.

  Peter Fonjungo is the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the DRC.

  Peter Fonjungo, CDC of Congo Director: By building these systems, we believe containing them here, it's — is the best strategy of preventing a propagation and transmission onward. Containing an epidemic here is the best way of preventing spread originally, as well as internationally.

• Benedict Moran:

  But the DRC still won't have widespread access to the antiviral or to the vaccine.

  Kitenga Demichelle and the two other children are back at their orphanage. Their symptoms have slightly improved. Because of the months-long delay at the National Laboratory, doctors still didn't know if it was monkeypox or something more common, like the measles.

• Andre Ndoumbe, Nurse, Bethesda Medical Center (through translator):

  You see it's an orphanage, right? Where the virus came from, no one knows. Who they contracted it from, no one knows. We have to take charge of this situation, so that it cannot spread any further.

• Benedict Moran:

  With so many questions unanswered, taking charge of this situation and preventing the virus from spreading may remain a difficult task.

  For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Benedict Moran in Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo.