On Thursday, March 27th, 2025, Dr. Ngashi Ngongo, Principal Advisor to Africa CDC’s Director General and Head of Continental Incident Management Support Team (IMST), led a press conference on the Mpox response. He discussed the intensification phase of the response, potential lifting of the public health emergency, and challenges facing Africa’s public health agenda. He presented data on the Mpox situation in Africa, highlighting progress in vaccination efforts and outlining the response strategy, including key targets and budget estimates.
The impact of US funding halts on vaccine supply was addressed, along with discussions on health financing strategies, private sector involvement, and the need for continued advocacy and support to address ongoing health emergencies.
Dr.Ngashi highlighted the importance of global solidarity in addressing the Mpox outbreak, particularly in Africa, as it poses a risk to global health security. He also discussed the challenges facing Africa’s public health agenda, including declining external aid, increasing debt servicing, and the vulnerability of health systems. “In response, Africa CDC has developed a new strategy to maintain the public health agenda on the continent, focusing on domestic financing, innovative financing, and blended financing. The goal is to optimise the use of limited resources and ensure that they are allocated efficiently.”
He expressed hope that with the intensification phase of the Mpox response the outbreak will be under control in the coming months, which will lead to the lifting of the public health emergency.
Dr Ngongo reported that the Director General of Africa CDC had missions to Europe to garner collaboration around a new vision of Africa, and to adapt the public health agenda of the continent into the rapidly changing global landscape.
He further reported that 3 countries have finally resumed vaccination.
He informed that 36 countries globally have reported Mpox case, among which 13 were reported outside of Africa. “This year alone 2025, we already have 2 countries that have reported - France and the United Arab Emirates - but most importantly, the majority of these cases had a travel history to Africa. I think that’s the reason why we talk about global health security. We need to work together to extinguish the fire in Africa, because protecting Africa is also protecting the world.”
The Public Health expert warned that we risk the reversal of the 2 decades of health achievement on the continent. He said they are also concerned about the risk of another African meat pandemic, which he sai may translate into more crises with economic vulnerability that will push many Africans into poverty.
Principal Advisor went on to outline Africa CDC’s strategies to combat outbreaks of diseases, including blended financing, private sector investment in some of the key initiatives of Africa, CDC, local manufacturing around digitalisation, connectivity and solarisation of their primary healthcare facilities and supply chain infrastructure, and optimisation of the use of resources to ensure that there is less corruption.
By Kumba Leigh
