On the Mpox outbreak in Africa and the necessary measures to save lives

On Wednesday, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, announced a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) because of the escalating outbreak of the more lethal “clade Ib” Mpox virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and throughout Africa.

So far this year, there have been 17,451 cases of Mpox reported across 13 African Union Member States, with 2,822 cases confirmed and 14,719 suspected. These cases have led to 517 fatalities, resulting in a case fatality rate of 2.95 percent. The number of cases this year has already surpassed the combined totals from 2022 and 2023, when Mpox posed a global threat.

Beyond the outbreaks in Africa, a case of the Mpox clade I strain was reported in Sweden on Thursday. This strain, unlike the Mpox clade IIb strain—which was mainly responsible for the 2022 and 2023 cases and was predominantly spread through sexual contact—transmits through close proximity alone.

No confidence can be placed in the world’s imperialist powers to act decisively to end this outbreak. The ruling class response to the COVID-19 pandemic, now in its fifth year, has led to the deaths of over 1.4 million Americans and 27 million people worldwide. Hundreds of millions have suffered the consequences of Long COVID.

In the resolution passed by the SEP in its Congress earlier this month, we state:

The response of the ruling class to the pandemic in the US and internationally has evolved into a “forever COVID” policy of unending mass reinfection, debilitation with Long COVID and death. This policy has been based on the subordination of public health to private profit and the repudiation of basic public health measures to prevent the spread of deadly pathogens.

The ruling elite’s response to all infections is essentially the same: No measures will be taken that impinge on the profit interests of the capitalist oligarchy.

And while the WHO pleads $15 million to address the Mpox outbreak, the Biden-Harris administration has just agreed to sell Israel an additional $20 billion in military equipment wage the genocide in Gaza and the broader war in the Middle East.

The only way to truly put an end to the threat posed by infectious diseases is to mobilize the international working class against the real disease, capitalism. Public health cannot be subordinated to private profit. As the SEP resolution stated:

A rational response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the broader health crisis requires the establishment of universal, socialized medicine. The stranglehold of the giant insurance companies must be ended and the profit motive must be removed from the entire healthcare system and replaced with universal high quality healthcare, free and accessible to everyone.

Moreover, as the repeated outbreaks of global infections demonstrates, there can be no national solution. The necessary measures to stop diseases and save lives requires an internationally coordinated response, which is not possible within the framework of the capitalist national-state system. It requires the fight of the international working class for socialism on world scale.

That is the program which the election campaign of the Socialist Equality Party is fighting for.