Tag: Explainer

Despite stark differences on worker rights, unions split on Trump, Harris

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Early voting is under way across the United States ahead of Tuesday’s presidential election. Republican candidate Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris have both made last-minute efforts to court union voters – a core voting bloc, especially in swing states like Michigan, where groups like the United Auto Workers (UAW) have significant sway among the electorate.

Vice President Harris has garnered endorsements from important unions across the country, including the UAW, AFL-CIO and Service Employees International Union.

Harris also has the support of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the union behind the latest Boeing strike, which is now entering its eighth week. Boeing picketers say that if she hits the picket line with them, it could help her win more votes.

Meanwhile, former President Trump has also solidified union support, limited though it may be. Members of the Teamsters union have shown stronger support for the Republican nominee. Although the International Brotherhood of Teamsters opted not to endorse either candidate, the union’s president, Sean O’Brien, has campaigned with Trump and appeared on conservative-friendly media outlets in support.

Trump also received an endorsement from the International Union of Police Associations. It comes despite Trump’s false claims about the high rate of crime in American cities, his 34 felony convictions and his campaign owing cities across the US hundreds of thousands of dollars, much of it for police overtime pay.

While Harris has wider support among union members – a 7 percent lead on Trump as 50 percent of union members say they believe Harris’s policies would be better for unions than Trump’s – the latter has garnered support among union members by tapping into issues that are top of mind for the broader electorate like immigration.

“Union members who are likely or could support Donald Trump are really not focused on collective bargaining or economic power but issues that have to do with immigration, issues that have to do with a sense of danger because of levels of crime,” Bob Bruno, professor of labour and employment at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, told Al Jazeera.

Despite Trump’s success in stoking fear about “migrant crime”, violent crime in the US has steadily declined during the administration of President Joe Biden. The most recent FBI data shows a 10.3 percent decline in reported violent crime compared with last year.

Al Jazeera analysed where the candidates stand on key issues important to union workers like collective bargaining and wages. Here’s what we found:

On organising

Harris has a pretty consistent record of being pro-union and was an original co-sponsor of a key workers rights bill – Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act.

The PRO Act, which originally was proposed in 2019, would prevent employers from interfering with union elections, allow for the National Labor Relations Board to hand out financial penalties to companies that violate labour laws and expedite reinstatement of work if workers lose their jobs as a result of a strike.

The bill was reintroduced in 2023 but has not passed the US Congress. Harris said she would sign it into law if elected.

“The Harris campaign is by far the more supportive of organised labour and collective bargaining, and the Trump campaign is outwardly hostile to the idea,” Bruno said.

JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, voted against the PRO Act and has been a vocal critic of the legislation. Vance also rejected several Biden administration nominees to the National Labor Relations Board. In 2020, then-President Trump threatened to veto the PRO Act if it made it to his desk.

The Trump White House also made it harder for workers to organise, including in 2019 when it got rid of a protection implemented during Barack Obama’s presidency that allowed workers to use company email to organise.

“When it comes to Trump, his presidency was an absolute disaster for working people and for union members. His entire term was doing the bidding of corporate CEOs and big corporations from the massive tax giveaways that he bestowed upon them to making it more difficult for workers to organise as a union,” Steven Smith, deputy director of public affairs for the AFL-CIO, told Al Jazeera.

In her capacity as vice president in the Biden administration, Harris spearheaded the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment, which aimed to help better communicate workers rights throughout federal agencies.

On the other hand, Trump has been openly hostile towards workers who are pushing for better working conditions.

In a recent interview with billionaire supporter Elon Musk on X, the social media platform Musk owns, Trump floated the idea of firing workers who are on strike, which would violate federal labour law.

The claim led the UAW to launch a formal complaint with the National Labor Relations Board to investigate Trump and Musk for interfering with workers rights.

On wages

Harris has said that if elected, she would try to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour – an important issue for workers in the service industry and their respective unions because the minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 an hour since 2009. Since then, its purchasing power has declined by almost 30 percent.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump works behind the counter during a visit to a McDonald’s restaurant in Feasterville-Trevose, Pennsylvania [File: Doug Mills/Pool via Reuters]

When he was asked about whether he would raise the minimum wage at a campaign event at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s franchise, Trump dodged the question.

In 2020, he said he would prefer minimum wages to be decided by the states.

“I think it should be a state option. Alabama is different than New York. New York is different from Vermont. Every state is different. It should be a state option,” Trump said at the time.

Thirty-four of the 50 US states have raised their minimum wages above the federal minimum.

That means the remaining 16 still have a minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. So for people who work full time at 40 hours per week at those wages, their annual pay would be only $20 higher than the poverty line for a single person household.

When Biden first took office, he pledged to raise the federal minimum wage for all workers. But his efforts to get Congress to pass the legislation were blocked by Republicans and a handful of Democrats. However, Biden did what the administration could do unilaterally and raised the federal minimum wage for federal workers.

Both Trump and Harris have pledged to end income taxes on tips if elected.

Harris has long fought to improve wages across the economy. During her time as attorney general in California, she launched a task force that was intended to crack down on wage theft in the state.

However, it’s not clear how well those efforts performed. By 2022, it was reported that even when workers won wage theft cases against their employers, only one out of seven were paid out those lost wages within five years.

Trump, however, has repeatedly argued against raising wages.

In 2015, he said wages were “too high”. During that time, he also said auto manufacturers should move operations to the southern part of the US to “lower-wage states”.

Despite these policy positions, Trump won the union-heavy state of Michigan in 2016. Biden won the state by 2.8 percentage points over Trump in 2020, and now it’s a dead heat between Harris and Trump in the state. An aggregate of political polls compiled by the poll-tracking website FiveThirtyEight shows Harris has a small lead in Michigan but well within the margin of error.

In 2018 while president, Trump used an executive order to scrap annual pay raises for civilian federal employees.

The Biden administration, however, has fought to improve wages for middle class workers. In several job creation programmes, the administration included a prevailing wage clause that requires companies bidding for contracts to pay a living wage to their employees.

“The middle class is going to earn prevailing wage on all of those construction and factory-related jobs that come with that large federal subsidy,” Bruno said.

On overtime pay

At the end of Obama’s second term, the Department of Labor said any full-time workers making less than $47,476 qualified for automatic overtime pay.

A judge in Texas blocked the rule before it could take effect. When the plan threshold came up for re-evaluation in 2019, the Trump administration slashed it. The cuts meant employers only needed to pay overtime for salaried workers making $35,358 a year or less.

When the rule was up for reconsideration again this year, the Biden-Harris administration raised the threshold to $43,888 on July 1. It will increase again on January 1 to $58,656. The plan will likely continue if Harris is elected next week.

As for Trump, his allies at the Heritage Foundation think tank want him, if he wins, to reverse the rule.

Trump has a long history of failing to pay overtime during his time in the private sector. A 2016 report from USA Today found that his companies violated overtime and minimum wage laws 24 times.

He echoed that sentiment in a campaign speech this month. The Republican nominee told supporters in Michigan he “used to hate to pay overtime”.

“People are shocked and they’re scared because if Trump takes away their overtime, they’re not going to be able to make their rent at the end of the month. That’s the kind of thing that’s at stake here,” Smith said.

Trump, however, has said he wants to end taxes on overtime pay as part of a bigger tax plan if he is re-elected.

“It’s time for the working man and woman to finally catch a break, and that’s what we are doing because this is a good one,” Trump said at a campaign rally in Arizona in September.

Neither campaign replied to Al Jazeera’s requests for comment.

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11/02/2024
Britain argues over assisted dying: What to know about the emotive debate

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London, United Kingdom – Britain is debating the issue of assisted dying after a bill to legalise it in England and Wales was formally introduced in parliament last week – the first attempt to change the law in a decade.

If it were enacted, assisted dying would legally give terminally ill, mentally competent adults with six months or less to live the right to choose to end their lives with medical help.

Since the 1961 Suicide Act, it has been illegal in England and Wales to encourage or assist suicide, and those found guilty face up to 14 years in prison.

Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, who is behind the bill introduced on October 16, said in a statement that it was “important” to get the legislation right with “the necessary protections and safeguards in place” so those with disabilities or mental illnesses do not feel pressured into taking the decision – which opponents of the bill argue could happen.

The debate over the polarising issue has moved religious figures and bodies.

“Legalising assisted suicide would disproportionately impact many millions of vulnerable people who might perceive themselves as a burden on those around them and the health service,” said Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury.

The British Islamic Medical Association said: “Alongside religious objection, many of us will have objections based on professional ethical code of conduct. We also see how this can be dangerous for vulnerable individuals and marginalised communities who already struggle to access healthcare in a system that is not able to respond to complex healthcare needs efficiently.”

Here’s what we know about the bill:

What is assisted dying?

Assisted dying is when terminally ill people receive lethal drugs from a medical practitioner to end their lives.

It is not to be confused with euthanasia, which is a similar process of ending a life by receiving lethal drugs from a doctor, but in this case, the person does not need to be terminally ill to choose to die.

What’s the bill about?

While many details of the bill have not yet been finalised, it’s expected to be similar to an assisted dying bill introduced in the House of Lords in July. That bill has since been withdrawn to make way for the new bill.

In the former bill, those who are terminally ill with only six months or less to live would be able to access medical help to end their lives after the decision is signed off on by two doctors and a High Court judge.

The last vote on legalising assisted dying in Britain was in 2015, but it was overwhelmingly rejected by British lawmakers: 330 voted against to 118 for.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who supported a 2015 assisted dying bill, said lawmakers should have a “free vote” and not be compelled to cast their ballots along party lines.

“There are grounds for changing the law,” he has said.

A debate and the first vote on the bill are expected to take place on November 29.

A small demonstration by people advocating assisted dying is held outside the Houses of Parliament in London on October 16, 2024 [Alberto Pezzali/AP]

What do campaigners for the bill say?

The arguments for assisted dying include self-determination, the alleviation of pain and suffering, and peace of mind.

Hundreds of Britons have spent thousands of pounds travelling to Switzerland to facilities like Dignitas, an organisation providing assisted dying.

According to Dignity in Dying, which carried out a poll, 84 percent of Britons support the legalisation of assisted dying.

Across political party lines, the highest support was recorded among Green voters with 79 percent backing a change in legislation. This was followed closely by Conservative voters with 78 percent support, Labour voters at 77 percent support and Liberal Democrats at 77 percent.

A spokesperson for Dignity in Dying told Al Jazeera that the new bill would bring “hope” to those who have called for a “compassionate choice at the end of life”.

“Under the current system, there are no upfront checks or balances to prevent a terminally ill Briton being coerced into travelling to Dignitas or taking their own life at home. We urgently need greater scrutiny, accountability and protection. That is what this bill will bring,” the spokesperson said.

Who opposes assisted dying and why?

Those against assisted dying have warned that marginalised groups, including disabled people and low-income households, will be disproportionately affected and put at risk.

Some religious groups are against the bill, arguing that life is sacred and ending it prematurely is morally wrong.

Others said improving palliative care should be the focus instead.

Disabled People Against Cuts have called on MPs to vote against the Assisted Dying Bill after they said it would put “disabled people under pressure to prematurely end their lives”.

“Initial good intentions to provide choice at the end of life can lead to disabled people without terminal illnesses being pushed to an early death because the support to live with dignity is not available,” it said.

The group pointed out the lack of state funding for hospices and palliative care, which provide support for terminally ill people.

Alistair Thompson, a spokesperson for Care not Killing, said the group against assisted dying has for years pushed for the palliative care system to be fixed.

“We know one in four people who would benefit from it don’t currently receive it,” he told Al Jazeera.

“But the reality is, it is incredibly expensive to fix the palliative care system. A huge amount of the funding from the palliative care system, which goes to the hospice movement, is raised by members of the public. It’s not centrally funded. So to fix the palliative care system means giving more money to the hospice movement, … and that’s going to be a multibillion-pound question,” Thompson explained.

Because Britain has an ageing population with complex needs, a legal route to assisted dying would lead to “more and more people feeling pressured into ending their lives early”, he said.

“The safeguards will be eroded and will simply be expanded.”

Where is assisted dying legal?

In Canada, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium and some states in the United States.

For those opposing the bill, Canada has become an example of why the Assisted Dying Bill in England and Wales should not be passed.

Assisted dying was legalised in Canada in 2016. The law was then broadened in 2021 to allow people with incurable but not terminal conditions, including disabilities, to seek a way to die.

But according to a recent investigation by The Associated Press, medical workers are “grappling with requests from people whose pain might be alleviated by money, adequate housing or social connections”.

Figures from Canada’s most populous province suggest a “significant number of people euthanised when they are in unmanageable pain but not about to die live in Ontario’s poorest areas”, The Associated Press revealed.

Thompson urged the British government to “look very, very carefully at [Canada] before going down this very dangerous route”.

Daniel Gover, senior lecturer in British politics at Queen Mary University of London, wrote about what could happen next for The Conversation.

There are many steps ahead that are likely to take months, if not longer, he said.

“Despite these procedural hurdles, the assisted dying bill has a reasonably good chance of passing into law,” he wrote. “In the end, much will depend on whether MPs are willing to back this change, and how determined they are to do so.”

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10/25/2024
Why does the US have such a high maternal mortality rate?

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Amid fierce debates around abortion and challenges with access to healthcare, women in the United States face another battle: the increasing risk of death associated with pregnancy.

The US has the highest maternal mortality rate of all high-income countries, at 22 deaths per 100,000 live births, according to analysis published by the Commonwealth Fund in June. It based this assessment on data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as well as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), of which the US is a member.

Some studies suggest that the high rate of US maternal mortality can be attributed to specific shortcomings in the country’s healthcare system, including one that especially impacts women from minority groups.

So what does the US maternal mortality crisis look like? Is there a way forward? And will abortion bans make it worse?

What is maternal mortality?

Maternal mortality refers to the death of a woman during pregnancy, childbirth or within the “postpartum” period following childbirth or the termination of a pregnancy due to complications or an abortion. These deaths can be caused by conditions such as excessive bleeding or seizures, but are related to or aggravated by pregnancy.

The US count includes deaths that occur within up to a year of delivery or termination of a pregnancy. In total, 817 US women in the US died of maternity-related causes in 2022. The country’s maternal mortality ratio that year stood at 22 deaths for every 100,000 live births.

However, this rate varies depending on ethnicity. Black women are more than twice as likely to experience a pregnancy-related death compared to the country’s average. For every 100,000 live births among Black women in 2022, nearly 50 women died within a year of delivery or termination.

What is causing high maternal mortality in the US?

Typically, some of the leading complications associated with maternal deaths have been “obstetric” or directly associated with pregnancy, such as excessive bleeding, placental blockages in the birth canal, and seizures.

However, the type of risks facing pregnant women in the US seem to be changing.

“Over the last two decades, we’re seeing a shift away from the more traditional obstetric risk for dying,” said Alison Gemmill, assistant professor in the department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health at John Hopkins University in the US.

“Now what we’re seeing is that most of the maternal deaths have some kind of underlying cardiovascular condition attached,” she said.

Additionally, a CDC report found that some of the leading causes of maternal death between 2017 and 2019 were mental health and heart conditions (in addition to excessive bleeding).

Pregnancies deemed high-risk from the outset are also becoming more common, according to KS Joseph, a professor at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of British Columbia in Canada, who studies maternal mortality around the world. Part of this can be attributed to assisted reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilisation (IVF), which help women with fertility issues related to factors such as age or pre-existing health conditions to conceive.

(Al Jazeera)

Are some ethnic groups affected more than others?

Without universal healthcare, US women – particularly those who are less likely to have health insurance – can lack comprehensive medical support.

Black women are especially at risk. In 2022, for every 100,000 live births, 49.5 Black women died. This was significantly higher than the rates for white (19.0), Hispanic (16.9) and Asian (13.2) women.

This disparity starts with a history of inadequate or inaccessible healthcare, and extends to implicit bias that affects the quality of medical care women receive during pregnancy, according to Melva Craft-Blacksheare, who was an assistant professor at the University of Michigan’s Flint campus until her retirement this year.

“A lot of this [bias] was part of the beginnings of gynaecology, like the idea that Black people don’t feel pain, because OBGYN [obstetrics and gynaecology], started with Dr Marion Sims, the father of OBGYN, working without anaesthesia on Black enslaved women,” she said.

After perfecting his surgical techniques on Black women without anaesthesia, American physician James Marion Sims performed the same procedures on white women who were sedated.

While anaesthesia was not fully integrated into medical practice in the 19th century, several sources have supported the notion that Sims’s decision to not use any kind of numbing technique on Black people was based on the misguided notion that they did not experience pain like white people did.

Craft-Blacksheare added that these misconceptions have been passed down through medical education and training in some form; as a result, Black women often find their concerns being dismissed by medical professionals.

Campaigners and family members believe this was the case in 2016 when 39-year-old Kira Johnson died in a Los Angeles hospital. Johnson, who was scheduled to deliver via Caesarean section, complained of severe pain in her abdomen for 10 hours before being attended to by the medical team. In emergency surgery, after which she died, doctors found that Johnson had been bleeding internally and had three litres of blood in her abdomen.

Research also shows that the chronic stress of experiencing racism can lead to accelerated aging and poorer health outcomes for Black women, putting them at higher risk of conditions like hypertension and pre-eclampsia, a potentially deadly condition if it is not identified, during pregnancy.

Craft-Blacksheare said that social challenges like poverty and domestic abuse, which Black women in the US often face at higher rates than other groups, should be considered by providers when treating pregnant women, as these factors can impact their health or ability to attend appointments.

(Al Jazeera)

Is the way the US monitors maternal mortality to blame?

The US method for recording pregnancy-related deaths is highly debated, and has raised concerns that it obscures the underlying causes of death in some cases.

In 2003, states across the country began adopting a death certificate that included a “pregnancy checkbox”, asking if the deceased was pregnant at the time of death or within the previous year. By 2017, when all states adopted the checkbox, the maternal mortality rate had more than doubled.

The CDC claims this checkbox addressed previous underestimations, but critics argue it is frequently ticked incorrectly, resulting in an overestimation of the number of deaths.

For example, one of the CDC’s own assessments found that in 2013, the checkbox was marked for 147 deceased women above the age of 85. Such findings have resulted in new rules for the checkbox, such as limiting its application to an age range of 10 to 44.

However, experts argue that ticking the checkbox still connects a significant number of deaths to pregnancy, even when that may not have aggravated the person’s demise.

“This overestimation and this lack of specificity with regard to causes of death is hurting the system and we are not able to identify what it is that we need to go after if we want to prevent these deaths,” explained Joseph, pointing to data showing that between 60 to 80 percent of maternal deaths in the US are preventable.

He added that if death certificates clearly outlined how being pregnant played a role, this could help accurately identify and address those preventable or common risk factors associated with pregnancy.

Craft-Blacksheare, who is on Michigan’s maternal mortality review committee, said she believes that the US maternal mortality cases are correct and not overestimated, however.

She explained that the committee not only confirms whether pregnancy was an aggravating factor in the death, but assesses additional factors such as whether the death was preventable or discrimination was involved in care.

Gemmill said that while state-level committees are important, the US needs to invest more in federal infrastructure to investigate the reliability and validity of maternal death reporting – similar to other high-income countries.

“We’ve lagged because we don’t have that kind of national system, that kind of gold standard system,” she said.

What else can be done to improve outcomes for mothers in the US?

Provide better prenatal care

Several key stages of pregnancy require special attention to reduce maternal mortality, experts say. These include medical assessments prior to conception, prenatal care during pregnancy, home visits and regular checkups following delivery.

About one in seven US babies were born to a mother receiving inadequate prenatal care in 2022, according to a study by the March of Dimes, a non-profit organisation dedicated to preventing premature births and birth defects.

Gemmill said that many women do not get treated for underlying conditions such as prediabetes until it is observed in pregnancy-related scans, causing them to miss out on opportunities for early intervention.

Improve postpartum care and expand maternity leave

Data indicates that women’s health is especially neglected in the postpartum period. Sixty-five percent of maternal deaths occur postpartum, with 30 percent occurring between 43 to 365 days after delivery.

Additionally, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, up to 40 percent of women do not attend a postpartum visit, potentially missing opportunities for timely intervention for health risks.

The Commonwealth Fund report also found that an absence of federally mandated paid maternity leave gives women less time to “better manage the physiological and psychological demands of motherhood”.

Overall, experts say that pregnant women need more focused care in clinical settings. “There’s so much emphasis on saving infants’ lives and making sure that infants are healthy. But then that means that the mom is an afterthought in many ways,” said Gemmill.

Focus more on maternal needs and midwifery

Craft-Blacksheare also sees healthcare for pregnant women as an infrastructure issue. “It’s driven by physicians, it’s driven by hospitals and it’s not driven by maternal needs,” she said.

Some suggest that increasing access to midwives can help make maternal healthcare more holistic. This could also compensate for a shortage of obstetricians and gynaecologists in the US, according to the Commonwealth Fund report.

Midwives are health professionals trained to medically and emotionally support women during pregnancy, labour and the postpartum period.

“Midwifery care is a very specialised care that puts the woman and the family in the centre of their care”, says Craft-Blacksheare, adding that midwives should work together with physicians, especially in high-risk situations.

Will US abortion bans make maternal mortality worse?

A study published in the journal Women’s Health Issues by researchers in Boston suggests that abortion bans, several of which have been passed in the US in the past year, will exacerbate maternal mortality, particularly when it comes to racial inequalities in deaths.

When local abortion facilities are unavailable, pregnant women are often forced to travel to other cities, counties or states for the procedure. Black and low-income patients, who frequently already have children, are disproportionately affected and often lack the economic security, social support, and childcare resources needed to take time off work and travel for an abortion.

When women are already at risk of dying due to a pregnancy complication, abortion restrictions force them to carry through with the pregnancy against their will. Once again, the effects of this are expected to be felt most deeply by Black and Hispanic women who lack access to comprehensive healthcare, according to the study.

The bans may also put the US even further behind other high-income countries, which largely allow abortions, in terms of maternal mortality rates.

Gemmill, who is also studying the effect of the abortion restrictions, said that while data is not currently available to draw a conclusion, an increase in maternal complications is possible.

“We’re already seeing stories come out from certain states where people aren’t getting the care that they need and it’s putting their lives at risk,” she said. “So I definitely think we will be seeing an increase because of that.”

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08/17/2024
How far has mpox spread and how can you protect yourself?

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At least two countries outside of Africa have reported mpox cases after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that the virus had become a “public health emergency” earlier this week.

A relatively new strain of the virus known as clade 1 has been spreading in African countries since 2022.

Earlier this year, it was reported that the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was experiencing the biggest outbreak of the disease ever recorded, with tens of thousands of people infected as of June. The government of DRC had declared it an epidemic in December 2022.

Last week, the Africa CDC reported that mpox has now been detected in at least 13 African countries. Compared with the same period last year, the agency said cases are up 160 percent and deaths have increased by 19 percent.

Here is what we know so far about where the disease has spread, how it affects the human body and how to protect yourself from infection.

To which other countries has the new strain of mpox virus spread?

The Pakistan Ministry of National Health Services confirmed its first case of the virus on Friday, saying the person had come from Saudi Arabia.

Health officials said sequencing is underway to determine the exact strain of the virus the person had been infected with.

On Thursday, Swedish health officials reported the country’s first case of mpox, confirming that it was the clade 1 strain, and said the person had become infected in Africa and is now receiving treatment.

Clade 1 tends to cause a higher number of severe infections and appears to be more easily spread through routine close contact, including sexual contact.

On Friday, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) raised its risk alert level to “moderate” from “low” and asked countries to maintain high levels of awareness among travellers visiting from affected areas.

How does the virus attack the human body?

Mpox mainly affects humans and animals. It belongs to the same family of viruses as smallpox but causes milder symptoms, such as fever, chills, and body aches. It can cause severe illness, and even death in some cases, however.

The virus enters the human body through broken skin or via the airways. It then spreads through the blood causing a person to experience flu-like symptoms and develop lesions on the skin.

According to Michael Marks at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, scientists “don’t think that mpox has direct effects on the immune system”.

“Beyond the fact that all infections obviously transiently cause responses in the immune system, we don’t believe there are long-term impacts on the immune system from mpox,” he said.

Dr Ngashi Ngongo, chief of staff at Africa CDC, also told Al Jazeera that the virus only causes symptoms that last “two to four weeks”.

“It’s a disease. Whether you get the severe form – then it leads to death – or you just recover [in] two to four weeks. Everything goes back to normal,” he said.

How does the virus spread?

The virus is spread by close contact with an infected person or animal. For human-to-human infection, the virus can be passed on through contact with skin lesions, skin-to-skin contact, and talking or breathing too close to an infected person.

It can also be spread via contaminated objects such as surfaces, bedding, clothing and towels, as the virus enters the body through broken skin, the respiratory tract, or the eyes, nose, and mouth.

Marks told Al Jazeera that the most important form of transmission is through skin-to-skin contact as the virus remains detectable on skin lesions for “three weeks or so”, rather than via the respiratory system since in “most people the virus is cleared from the throat by seven to 10 days”.

For human-to-animal transmission, the virus typically enters the body through bites, scratches or contact with the wounds on an infected animal.

What are the symptoms?

The disease causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions. It is usually mild but can be severe enough to kill.

Marks explained that most people have a “relatively mild illness” where they could have a fever, muscle aches and a rash with “five to 25 lesions”.

“Some people become much more unwell and they may develop a more severe illness with hundreds of lesions all over the body,” he said.

What variables can cause more severe symptoms?

While Marks explained that the illness presents mild symptoms in most people, some people are at higher risk of experiencing severe symptoms.

“For example, people with untreated HIV [a sexually transmitted illness] or a weak immune system are at still higher risk of severe disease. Children also seem to be at higher risk of severe disease,” he said.

Children, he explained, are likely affected by mpox more than adults for “several reasons”.

“A lot of the transmission is in densely populated areas with many children, and children are probably more prone to running around and coming into direct skin-to-skin contact with others – so that then causes transmission. Whereas adults have less direct contact with others,” he said.

Ngongo added that children are also at higher risk as their “defence mechanism” – the immune system – is still developing.

What treatment is available for this strain of mpox?

There is no current treatment for mpox but some antiviral drugs are being tested, Marks said.

“There is, however, vaccination, which is effective at reducing risk. The priority needs to be getting an adequate supply of vaccine to those populations most at risk in DRC and surrounding countries,” he said.

“If we can vaccinate individuals at risk they will be protected from infection and this will help control the epidemic – so both benefit the person vaccinated and the broader population,” he added.

A vaccine for mpox, which was used in the 2022 outbreak by many Western countries, is not accessible by poorer African nations, Ngongo explained.

“There is no vaccine in Africa. Whatever is left of that vaccine is stockpiled in the West as part of their own emergency preparedness. But we have an ongoing emergency here,” he said.

Ngongo explained that through donations, Africa CDC has managed to obtain 280,000 doses. However, for the vaccine to be effective, people must take two doses, lowering the amount they have for 140,000 people only.

How can you protect yourself?

Ngongo advised people to “go back to the basics of personal hygiene” and remember to wash hands, avoid contact with those who are sick and advise people to go to the hospital if they are displaying symptoms so that the virus can be contained.

Mpox vaccines are also effective in protecting the population if you are in a country where it is accessible.

Could the mpox virus spread further?

Given the resources in richer countries to stop the spread of the virus, scientists believe that if new outbreaks linked to Congo are identified quickly, transmissions could be stopped relatively quickly.

The “major risk”, Marks said, is in central Africa where the epidemic is occurring and spreading.

“There are likely to be small numbers of cases exported further afield, as [in] the Swedish case, but the major risk and the focus for action needs to be on central Africa,” he said.

Ngongo also urged people to learn from the COVID-19 pandemic and “act now”.

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08/17/2024