Concern is growing that the scramble for scarce supplies of monkeypox vaccines could see some nations and high-risk groups miss out - recalling unequal global access to COVID-19 vaccines and HIV medication.

The outbreak, which has reached nearly 100 countries outside of Africa, where the virus is endemic, is overwhelmingly being transmitted among men who have sex with men. They are getting priority for vaccination globally, but some face a longer wait than others.

“In a lot of ways we’re seeing history repeat itself, unfortunately,” said Wafaa El-Sadr, executive vice president for Columbia Global Centers, Columbia University’s international network of campuses.

“We have yet to learn the hard lessons we learned first from HIV and COVID-19 more recently,” she added.

Effective HIV treatments hit the market in 1996 and soon ended the crisis phase of the AIDS epidemic in Western nations, but it was years later before substantial antiretroviral supplies reached sub-Saharan Africa.

Similarly, COVID-19 vaccines and treatments were stockpiled by the richest countries.

Limited supplies of Bavarian Nordic’s monkeypox vaccine have mostly been snapped up by the United States - the country with the most cases, but some hard-hit nations such as Brazil and Peru still have none, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said.

The WHO is trying to set up an equitable distribution mechanism, but has no access to vaccines.

US officials said on Aug. 26 that nearly 1.1 million vials of the vaccine - called Jynneos, Imvanex and Imvamune, depending on the country - have either been allocated to jurisdictions within the United States or are now available for ordering.

Read the full article about the monkeypox vaccine at Eco-Business.