A top health official has called on wealthy countries not to "abandon Africa" as it races against the mpox pandemic, previously known as monkeypox.

The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) is looking to raise $600 million (€542 million) for a vaccination program for the disease that has now spread to 14 nations on the continent.

The head of the organization, Dr Jean Kaseya, said he was hopeful the funding goal would be met "because this is time for Western countries to show that they learned from COVID."

"We don't want to come back again tomorrow to say, you again abandoned Africa," he said during an online briefing on Thursday.

"We want them to understand this lesson to say it's time for them to rebuild the trust."

What's the latest on the mpox pandemic?

The World Health Organization declared mpox an international emergency in August after a surge in cases of the new Clade 1b strain in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

According to the latest Congolese Public Health Institute figures, 22,000 mpox cases were recorded so far this year and 716 people have died. Most of them were children.

Officials said 107 new deaths and 3,160 new cases recorded in the past week alone — a figure Kaseya said was "not acceptable."

Vaccinations underway

The European Union has so far delivered around 200,000 mpox vaccine doses to African health authorities, while the United States has delivered around 50,000 doses.

Japan has promised up to 3 million doses while several European countries have pledged several hundred thousand more doses too.

But Kaseya said it would be much cheaper to transfer vaccine production capabilities to the African continent, which would reduce the price of vaccines by 80%-90%.

The Africa CDC held talks Danish biotech firm Bavarian Nordic last month about potentially producing its mpox vaccine somewhere in Africa.

"As we know, the trust was broken between Western countries and Africa. It's really time for solidarity," said Kaseya. "It is a global issue."

zc/jcg (AFP, AP)