Mpox is simmering south of the border

The ideas and innovators shaping health care

Feb 10, 2023 View in browser   By Carmen Paun, Ben Leonard, Ruth Reader and Erin Schumaker WEEKEND READ Vaxxed in New York: A patient gets the mpox jab last August. | Mary Altaffer/AP Photo “Neighboring countries to the U.S. not investing in a broad-based approach to the problem will ultimately affect the U.S.” David Harvey of the National Coalition of STD Directors on the danger posed by Latin American governments’ decision to eschew the mpox vaccine The U.S. mpox emergency is over, but the disease is still simmering south of the border. Mexico and most Latin American governments have decided against the mpox vaccination campaign that’s helped drive down cases in the U.S. from more than 400 a day in August to nearly zero, Carmen reports. Public health officials fear the choice to forgo the vaccine is one example of how victories over mpox, the disease formerly known as monkeypox, can be ephemeral when countries go it alone. We could soon get a clearer picture of how big of a risk remains. Last year’s U.S. outbreak emerged during the worldwide LGBTQ pride festival season, and this year’s festivities are just around the corner. Why have Latin American countries rejected vaccination? Top Mexican health officials have claimed the shot hasn’t yet been proven safe and effective, even though the CDC has found that people who had a dose of the vaccine, Jynneos, from the Danish manufacturer Bavarian Nordic, were 14 times less likely to be infected than those unvaccinated. Jorge Alcocer Varela, Mexico’s health secretary, told the country’s Senate that the vaccine also didn’t prevent people from developing symptoms. He wasn’t encouraging its use, he said, because the number of people dying from the disease was low, according to Mexican media reports. And Mexico isn’t alone. Most Latin American countries have tried to stem the outbreak without vaccines, said Rubén Mayorga Sagastume, the mpox incident manager at the Pan American Health Organization. Only a dozen countries bought shots through a PAHO joint purchase mechanism: the Bahamas, Belize, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guyana, Honduras, Jamaica, Panama, Peru and Trinidad and Tobago. Colombia made a deal with Japan in December to get 25,000 doses of a Japanese-made vaccine initially developed for smallpox to immunize people as part of a clinical trial. Several countries that didn’t get vaccines said they couldn’t agree to waive Bavarian Nordic’s liability for vaccine side effects, a practice that pharma companies typically demand during outbreaks, Mayorga Sagastume said. “Others, I imagine that was because of financial constraints, because vaccines were expensive,” he said. Where is the disease spreading now? Cases started to rise again at the end of last month, according to the World Health Organization. The number of cases reported globally was slightly more than 400 in the last week of January, with most new cases in the Americas and Africa. Of the 13 countries that saw an increase, Mexico reported the highest weekly hike, reaching 72 cases.   STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today.     WELCOME TO FUTURE PULSE Monarch Grove Sanctuary, Pacific Grove, Calif. | AP This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care. It appears that Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT was very close to being a Jeopardy! answer. Close but no cigar for health IT wonks. Share any thoughts, news, tips and feedback with Ben Leonard at bleonard@politico.com, Ruth Reader at rreader@politico.com, Carmen Paun at cpaun@politico.com or Erin Schumaker at eschumaker@politico.com. Send tips securely through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp. Today on our Pulse Check podcast, host Alice Miranda Ollstein talks with Josh Gerstein about a federal judge’s recent suggestion that a constitutional right to abortion could be conferred by the 13th Amendment. WORKFORCE Practice, practice: Surgeons who've done more surgeries tend to have better results. | Getty Images Want surgeons to get better at their craft? Have them do more surgeries. Examining national insurance claims for hip and knee surgeries from 2021, the Clarify Health Institute found that patients who went to surgeons with more experience were less likely to be readmitted or need surgeries to fix prior procedures. Doctors who’d performed more than 100 hip or knee replacement surgeries also did the job at lower cost than surgeons with fewer than 10 previous surgeries under their belts. The more experienced surgeons had about half the hospital admission rate within 60 days: 4 percent versus 8.1 percent for the less experienced surgeons. Zeke Emanuel, a strategic adviser to health analytics firm Clarify Health, said the research showed that after about 50 surgeries, doctors reached a level of proficiency and could work alone. Niall Brennan, chief analytics and privacy officer at Clarify Health and leader of the institute, the company’s research arm, said more transparency around doctors’ experience levels could help people seeking a surgeon. “Volume just seems like the kind of thing that anybody can understand,” Brennan said. “When I order an Uber, one of the first things I do is see what the driver rating is and how many trips they’ve done.”   LISTEN TO POLITICO'S ENERGY PODCAST: Check out our daily five-minute brief on the latest energy and environmental politics and policy news. Don't miss out on the must-know stories, candid insights, and analysis from POLITICO's energy team. Listen today.     THE LAB Studying mosquitos could get less itchy, thanks to a new medical device. | Photo courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Public Health Image Library. Could a new biomaterial that mimics human skin to attract and study mosquitoes offer hope in combating diseases the bloodsuckers carry? Researchers at Tulane and Rice universities used a 3D printer to make the biomaterial, a hydrogel that can be filled with blood and is porous like skin so mosquitoes can smell what’s in it. That enables researchers to study mosquito feeding habits without subjecting humans to their bites and then see when mosquitoes transmit diseases. “We can actually be able to track different types of mosquitoes feeding on the gel and have an early diagnosis of an outbreak of a certain type of mosquito,” Omid Veiseh, an assistant professor of bioengineering whose lab at Rice developed the gel, told Ruth.   Follow us on Twitter Ben Leonard @_BenLeonard_ Ruth Reader @RuthReader Carmen Paun @carmenpaun Erin Schumaker @erinlschumaker   Follow us

To change your alert settings, please log in at https://www.politico.com/_login?base=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.politico.com/settings This email was sent to rouf@idiot.cloudns.cc by: POLITICO, LLC 1000 Wilson Blvd. Arlington, VA, 22209, USA Please click here and follow the steps to unsubscribe.