Is it still useful to get vaccinated against mpox (formerly called “monkey pox”named after the virus that causes the disease, monkeypox)? The High Authority for Health (HAS), an independent organization responsible for guiding French health policy, responded in the affirmative, and advised, on Monday, September 2, people at risk to be injected with the Bavarian Nordic product, marketed in Europe under the name Imvanex.
This target population has not changed since the last outbreak outside Africa in 2022-2023. These include men who have sex with men (MSM), trans people reporting multiple sexual partners, people in prostitution, professionals in sexual encounter venues, regardless of the status of these venues, and finally people sharing the same living space as those previously mentioned.
In total, some 300,000 people are therefore affected by these vaccination recommendations, since Public Health France estimates that the MSM population with multiple partners is around 250,000, and the authorities estimate that there are around 30,000 to 40,000 people in prostitution.
“We are facing a real pandemic riskinsists infectious disease specialist Anne-Claude Crémieux. This may be one of the rare times when we are faced with a potentially pandemic virus and have the opportunity to intervene while the disease is still confined to a limited target population. We must learn from the past.” The chairwoman of the HAS technical vaccination committee, who issued the opinion, thus refers to the first epidemic outbreak of mpox outside Africa which, in 2022 and 2023, affected 117 countries across the world, causing some 100,000 cases of this disease which until then was endemic only in a few African countries.
“The determining factor is the anonymous multi-partnership”
The health challenge is now twofold, since subclade 2b, which caused the outbreak two years ago, continues to circulate in thirteen countries outside Africa, including France – 126 cases have been reported in the country since the beginning of the year, including only one woman. And the new subclade 1b identified a year ago in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and which is spreading rapidly to its African neighbors, could spread globally, as was the case with its predecessor.
The target population in France has remained unchanged since 2022, even though the disease mainly infects children in Africa. The two subclades that are currently worrying the international community are mainly spread sexually among populations with multiple partners. The first cluster identified in April 2024 for the new subclade 1b was among MSM in Kwango province, DRC.
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