And this morning, the WaPo makes it the top of its editorial page. . . finally(!):
. . .[C]lade 1 mpox. . . is raging through the Democratic Republic of Congo. More than 27,000 suspected cases have been reported, with more than 1,300 deaths. Already, clade 1 mpox has spread to neighboring countries including Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and Central African Republic. . . .
In Congo, two groups are especially vulnerable. The first includes female sex workers, their male customers and men who have sex with men. The second — in a notable departure from the 2022 outbreak — are children. The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that nearly 70 percent of cases in Congo are in children under 15, who make up about 85 percent of deaths.
Children might be especially vulnerable because mpox has similarities to smallpox, and older generations who received the smallpox vaccine are thought to have some immunity to mpox. Plus, many Congolese children are malnourished or have untreated HIV, making them more susceptible to infections. . . .
Another reason for rapid spread is ongoing unrest. In the eastern provinces of South and North Kivu, where mpox is raging, nearly 1 million people are displaced and living in crowded refugee camps, including hundreds of thousands of children. Since mpox can be transmitted through sharing contaminated objects such as clothing and face-to-face contact with an infected person, it’s not hard to see how transmission here is so hard to control. . . .
Yes, tonight's debate will be an important story (I expect Kamala will mop the floor with his terrible rug). But globally, perhaps we all ought to think a bit -- and take funding actions -- to address this lethal and ongoing international (soon to be global?) public health crisis. These are primarily children who are dying -- solely because we are not sending the proper vaccines in a timely manner. Out.
नमस्ते
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