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The next pandemic?

I think this is the correct thread:

‘I’m really shocked.’ Children not being vaccinated for mpox in Congo

Looks like vaccine hesitancy (or anti-vaxx propaganda) and worries about potential liability could be to blame.

When children get mpox, they are more likely than adults to become severely ill and die. But despite their vulnerability, children are not eligible for the vaccines now being rolled out for the first time in the DRC. Instead, the vaccination campaign targets sex workers and their clients, health care workers, and people who have been in contact with cases.
The DRC has had mpox outbreaks for decades, predominantly affecting children, but they typically petered out quickly. Over the past year, however, a little-known variant of the virus exploded in the eastern DRC, which never had mpox before. . . . The DRC has had more than 40,000 suspected and confirmed cases this year, and in the past 4 weeks 60% were in children.
So it is currently affecting more children than adults, and children also have worse outcomes, but are not eligible to be vaccinated, What is the risk-to-benefit trade-off here?
 
I think this is the correct thread:

‘I’m really shocked.’ Children not being vaccinated for mpox in Congo

Looks like vaccine hesitancy (or anti-vaxx propaganda) and worries about potential liability could be to blame.



So it is currently affecting more children than adults, and children also have worse outcomes, but are not eligible to be vaccinated, What is the risk-to-benefit trade-off here?
If you want a detailed but not too technical summary then this is a good source
In essence the current smallpox / mpox vaccine appears safe in children and certainly safer than the vaccine that was used to eradicate smallpox. However it has not been widely studied in the field and so is could be regarded as still experimental. vaccine sceptics will find lots of reasons to be negative. Liability is not usually an issue, as wavers are given to manufacturers in these circumstances.

The current mpox vaccine derives from the 1892 Lister smallpox vaccine. Named after the Lister institute (previously the Jenner institute) it has been seriously passaged until it is now unable to replicate in humans.
 
An even shorter version here: Modified vaccinia Ankara: Development as a poxvirus vaccine (Wikipedia)
I thought it had been developed by Bavarian Nordic as a vaccine specifically against mpox, but you're right, it immunizes against both smallpox and mpox. Since it was already approved as immunization against smallpox, I guess that it was easier to get approval for using it against mpox: no new side effects to take into account.
 
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