Sweden has confirmed its first case of mpox on Thursday just as Pakistan reported three cases. China’s customs administration said it will monitor people and goods entering the country for mpox for the next six months. Danish drugmaker Bavarian Nordic said Thursday it was ready to produce up to 10 million doses of its vaccine targeting mpox by 2025,
The WHO’s declaration of mpox as a global health emergency aims at galvanizing action and resources to mitigate the spread of the virus.
More cases likely in Europe
WHO warned further imported cases of the new, more dangerous mpox strain in Europe were likely, after Sweden announced the first such infection outside Africa in an outbreak that has killed hundreds in the DR Congo. The WHO’s European regional office in Copenhagen said it was discussing with Sweden how best to manage the newly detected case. “The confirmation of mpox Clade 1 in Sweden is a clear reflection of the interconnectedness of our world,” it said in a statement. “There are likely to be further imported cases of Clade 1 in the European region over the coming days and weeks, and it is imperative that we don’t stigmatise travellers or countries/regions. Travel restrictions and border closures don’t work and should be avoided,” it added.
Health risk emerges in a vulnerable global economy
Before the covid pandemic broke out, the World Bank expected global GDP to grow by 2.5 percent from roughly $85 trillion in 2019 to close to $87 trillion by 2020. In reality, global GDP fell by 3.1 percent in 2020, and the subsequent 2023 Global Economic Prospects shows a shortfall of close to $4.7 trillion from the initial 2020 forecast, as per the World Bank. Today, 95 percent of people live in countries with lower GDP growth than forecast before the pandemic. Global GDP is not currently forecast to catch up to expected GDP levels prior to covid in the foreseeable future, as per the World Bank.The mpox global health emergency comes at a time when the world economic growth faces inflationary risks which keep interest rates high even as there are fears of the US sliding into recession while China’s economy has failed to pick up after its worst stretch in five quarters. Additionally, geopolitical risks too loom large as Iran’s threatened retaliatory attack on Israel might trigger a regional war. Tensions on China’s possible invasion of Taiwan remain while there is no progress in resolving the Ukraine war. Higher tariffs and a scaling up of domestic industrial policy are also worrisome. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) criticised the Biden administration’s decision to aggressively raise tariffs on some Chinese goods, underscoring its warning that tensions between the world’s top two economies risk hurting global trade and growth.The IMF warned last month that momentum in the fight against inflation is slowing, which could further delay an easing of interest rates and keep up strong dollar pressure on developing economies. It said the global economy is set for modest growth over the next two years amid cooling activity in the US, a bottoming-out in Europe and stronger consumption and exports for China, but risks to the path abound. The IMF kept its 2024 global real gross domestic product growth forecast unchanged from April at 3.2% and raised its 2025 forecast by 0.1 percentage point to 3.3%. The forecasts fail to shift growth from the lackluster levels that IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva has warned would lead to “the tepid twenties.”
Optimism about global growth prospects this year and next is building among hundreds of economists recently polled by Reuters, but with risks still tilted toward higher inflation even as they cling on to their forecasts for interest rate cuts. While most major central banks were successful last year in taming sky-rocketing inflation rates with rapid rate hikes, a resilient global economy with strong employment and wage growth has kept alive risks of price pressures surging again, the poll showed.
The global economy is expected to stabilize for the first time in three years in 2024 but at a level that is weak by recent historical standards, according to the World Bank’s June Global Economic Prospects report. Global growth is projected to hold steady at 2.6% in 2024 before edging up to an average of 2.7% in 2025-26. That is well below the 3.1% average in the decade before COVID-19. The forecast implies that over the course of 2024-26 countries that collectively account for more than 80% of the world’s population and global GDP would still be growing more slowly than they did in the decade before COVID-19.
The steadying global growth four years after several setbacks such as the pandemic, conflicts, inflation and monetary tightening is at a high risk if mpox gains pandemic proportions. However, since mpox does not spread by air but touch, the disruptions won’t be as severe as in case of covid. Border closures and travel restrictions may not assume proportions of the covid pandemic. Yet, a covid-level outbreak will slow down economic activity drastically and might push the world into what IMF managing director Georgieva called “the tepid twenties.”
(With inputs from agencies)