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The psychological operations continue to ramp up to create a sense of urgency and fear required to market smallpox vaccines to Africa as mpox vaccines.  But all is not as it seems, not least of all when it comes to distinguishing between the virus that causes “mpox” and the virus that causes smallpox.

On Friday, former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown published an article in The Guardian dramatically titled ‘Another worldwide alert – mpox is spreading. Here are three steps we can take to head it off’.  The three steps Brown suggested were:

• First, thousands of available vaccines could be released now. The Africa CDC estimates that the continent may need as many as 10 million doses to end the outbreak.
• Second, the burden can be shared, and the cost of the two doses of the vaccine people need can be negotiated downwards.
• Third, we must ramp up our manufacturing capacity to ensure more supply of vaccines.

So, there is only one solution – vaccines, which makes Brown look very much like a vaccine salesman. 

So far, “615 people have lost their lives this year in the DRC, where 90% of cases in Africa have been recorded.” Brown wrote.

The number of 615 deaths is according to the United Nations Refugee Agency (“UNHCR”) on 27 August as quoted by the World Health Organisation (“WHO”), which states “615 deaths to date.” UNHCR doesn’t state when the start date for the cumulative figure begins.  But let’s take Brown’s word for it that it began at the beginning of this year.

Assuming the number of deaths is roughly evenly spread, and if 615 are suspected to have died with or from mpox in 8 months, then the annual equivalent would be 923.  According to Our World in Data (the latest data is for 2021) this would mean that suspected cases of mpox are the 8^th from the bottom cause of death, with fewer deaths than each of suicide, drowning, nutritional deficiencies, conflicts and terrorism, homicide, fire and poisonings.

The comparison is far from perfect because we’re oversimplifying the estimation of annual deaths and comparing them to data from almost three years ago. However, it does put Brown’s scaremongering into context nonetheless.

Other points Brown omitted from his article are how cases are determined, and how these numbers compare to the total population and all-cause mortality.

A the time of writing, based on Worldometer’s elaboration of the latest United Nations data, the population of the Democratic Republic of Congo (“DRC”) was 109,880,327 or approaching 110 million.  Worldometer doesn’t have a population figure for 2021, but for 2020 it estimated DRC’s population at 96 million and in 2022, more than 102 million.  That means there are relatively a high number of deaths in an average year. Indeed, in 2021, Our World in Data noted that 603,016 people died in the DRC from all causes.

Again, the comparison to the 615 people suspected to have died from mpox this year is less than perfect, but again it puts Brown’s scaremongering into context.

We have referred to suspected cases and suspected mpox deaths because, as we noted in a previous article, testing capacity is low in the DRC and most cases are not confirmed by lab testing.  “So, we’ll have to rely on ‘suspected cases’, based on a clinical definition, to keep track of the epidemic,” C Raina MacIntyre, an Australian Professor of Global Biosecurity, wrote in The Conversation.

On Sunday a week ago, the World Health Organisation (“WHO”) advertised the symptoms of mpox on its Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean (“EMRO”) Twitter profile.

EMRO is one of six WHO regional offices worldwide and serves 22 countries and territories in West Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa and Central Asia.  It’s not clear why EMRO is actively responding to the mpox outbreak.  It must simply be because the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (“Africa CDC”) officially declared the mpox outbreak a Public Health Emergency of Continental Security (“PHECS”) on 13 August.

As we noted in our article, these symptoms are not particular to mpox.  Apart from similarities to a vaccinia virus infection, vaccinia virus being one of the components of the Jynneos smallpox vaccine being repurposed for mpox, MacIntyre noted similarities to symptoms of chickenpox and that a diagnosis of chickenpox does not rule out the person having mpox at the same time.

The other viral infection that has similar symptoms to mpox is smallpox.  Smallpox is caused by the Variola virus. Symptoms of an infection typically start with fever, headache and swollen lymph nodes, followed by a rash with fluid-filled lesions. Mpox symptoms begin with fever, headache and swollen lymph nodes, then progress to a rash. Both viruses are Orthopoxviruses.

It’s not only the symptoms that are the same; the mpox virus is so similar to the smallpox virus that they are the same virus.

Yet, in 1980 after aggressive vaccination programmes throughout which “WHO played a critical role,” WHO declared smallpox eradicated – the only infectious disease to achieve this distinction.  “This remains among the most notable and profound public health successes in history,” WHO boasts.

Mpox and Smallpox are 97% Identical

The following is Jikkyleaks response to EMRO’s tweet above.

That awkward moment when the WHO accidentally reveals that smallpox was never really eradicated, by declaring a mpox “PHEIC.”

97% identical genome.

That’s why your “mpox” vaccine is a smallpox vaccine.

Changes things a bit doesn’t it?

[Jikkyleaks then linked to two previous Twitter threads posted in 2022, the first time WHO declared monkeypox a public health emergency of international concern (“PHEIC”).  You can read these threads HERE and HERE   Note: Monkeypox is now referred to as mpox.]

To put this in context, [Herpes simplex virus 1] HSV-1 and HSV-2 are only 80% identical and they often crossover in their clinical symptomatology, i.e. are indistinguishable.

[Varicella-zoster virus] VZV (chickenpox) is totally different – no similarity.

They sold smallpox as an airborne virus. It was a lie.