Is it still useful to get vaccinated against mpox (formerly called “monkeypox”(named after the virus that causes the disease, monkeypox)? The High Authority for Health (HAS), an independent body responsible for guiding French health policy, responded affirmatively and advised, on Monday, September 2, that people at risk inject themselves with the Nordic-Bavarian product, marketed in Europe under the name Imvanex.
This target population has not changed since the last outbreak outside Africa in 2022-2023. They include men who have sex with men (MSM), trans people who report having multiple sexual partners, people engaged in prostitution, professionals in sexual meeting places, whatever the status of these places, and finally, people who share the same living space as those mentioned above.
In total, there are therefore some 300,000 people affected by these vaccination recommendations, since Public Health France estimates the population of MSM with multiple partners at around 250,000 people, and the authorities estimate the number of people with multiple partners at between 30,000 and 40,000. prostitution.
“We are facing a real risk of a pandemicinsists infectious disease specialist Anne-Claude Crémieux. This is perhaps one of the rare occasions when, faced with a potentially pandemic virus, we can intervene while the disease is still confined to a limited target population. We must learn lessons from the past. » The president of the HAS technical commission on vaccination, which issued the opinion, is referring to the first epidemic outbreak of mpox outside Africa which, in 2022 and 2023, affected 117 countries around the world, causing some 100,000 cases of this disease. a disease that was previously endemic only in a few African countries.
“The determining factor is anonymous multi-collaboration”
The current health challenge is twofold, as the subclade 2b that caused the outbreak two years ago is still circulating in thirteen countries outside Africa, including France: 126 cases have been reported in the country since the beginning of the year, including just one woman. And the new subclade 1b, identified a year ago in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and spreading rapidly among its African neighbours, could spread globally, as did its predecessor.
The target population in France has remained unchanged since 2022, although the disease mainly affects children in Africa. The two subclades that are currently of concern to the international community are mainly transmitted sexually between populations with multiple partners. The first cluster identified in April 2024 for the new subclade 1b occurred among MSM in Kwango province, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
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