There’s a lot of money in pandemics, real or made up. From David Bell at childrenshealthdefense.org:
About 500 people died from mpox in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) this year, over 80% of them under age 15. In that same period, about 40,000 people in DRC, mostly children under age 5, died from malaria.
The mpox emergency
The World Health Organization (WHO) acted as expected last week and declared mpox a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC).
So, a problem in a small number of African countries that has killed about the same number of people this year as die every four hours from tuberculosis has come to dominate international headlines. This is raising a lot of angst from some circles against the WHO.
While angst is warranted, it is mostly misdirected. The WHO and the International Health Regulations (IHR) emergency committee they convened had little real power — they are simply following a script written by their sponsors.
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, which declared an emergency a day earlier, is in a similar position.
Mpox is a real disease and needs local and proportionate solutions. But the problem it is highlighting is much bigger than mpox or the WHO, and understanding this is essential if we are to fix it.
Mpox, previously called monkeypox, is caused by a virus thought to normally infect African rodents such as rats and squirrels. It fairly frequently passes to, and between, humans. In humans, its effects range from very mild illness to fever and muscle pains to severe illness with its characteristic skin rash and sometimes death.
Different variants, called “clades,” produce slightly different symptoms. It is passed by close body contact including sexual activity, and the WHO declared a PHEIC two years ago for a clade that was mostly passed by men having sex with men.
The current outbreaks involve sexual transmission but also other close contact such as within households, expanding its potential for harm. Children are affected and suffer the most severe outcomes, perhaps due to issues of lower prior immunity and the effects of malnutrition and other illnesses.
Good ol’ globalism (s/) removes all firewalls.
That’s a lil’ too much freedom you have there comrade, we’ll liberate it for your own health and hygiene.
None are BF until all are BF with the funky pox.
A pox on their house and plans.
Felt blood sugar getting too low Early AM with hand shakes and dizziness, tore into some Jolly Ranchers and Worthers Halloween packs, a fun indulgence, extra heel and toe today for the lapse in discipline.
Si se puede!