CBS News
Mpox vaccines arrive in Congo, but not fast enough as the disease spreads and deaths mount fast
Johannesburg — Health officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo said Thursday they would start administering mpox vaccinations on Oct. 2, about a week sooner than initially planned, in a bid to counter the sharp rise of cases in the central African nation. The World Health Organization, meanwhile, granted pre-authorization Friday to the mpox vaccine already widely in use around the world, which should make it easier for African nations to obtain doses — if the developed world provides the necessary funding.
“This first prequalification of a vaccine against mpox is an important step in our fight against the disease, both in the context of the current outbreaks in Africa, and in future,” WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
Congo authorities approved two mpox vaccines for use in adults in the country in late June as they raced to contain a growing outbreak. Without the WHO pre-authorization, however, Gavi, the global vaccine alliance that funds the purchase of vaccines for low-income countries, could only accept donations from other nations. The Friday announcement paves the way for Gavi to directly purchase vaccines from pharmaceutical companies to ship to affected countries.
Race to roll out first mpox vaccinations in hard-hit Congo
An initial 10-day vaccination drive, using vaccines donated by the U.S. and Europe, is to launch simultaneously in several of Congo’s most affected regions, targeting only adults who work in health care, sex work and other front-line community jobs, according to Cris Kacita Osako, coordinator of the country’s Monkeypox Response Committee.
U.S. Ambassador Lucy Tamlyn announced in a Tuesday social media post the arrival of 50,000 mpox vaccine doses in Congo donated by the U.S. government, adding to the 200,000 doses received late last week from the European Union.
Dr. Jean Kaseya, director general of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, welcomed the vaccine deliveries, adding a call for the U.S. to provide “continued support as we need to vaccinate 10 million people in Africa in the next 6 months.”
Kaseya said the Africa CDC was seeking an additional $599 million from the U.S. to support “the continental response to the outbreak.” Such funding would help Congo and other poor nations obtain significantly more vaccines through the Gavi alliance.
The mpox vaccine, manufactured by Denmark-based Bavarian Nordic, has been approved for adult use and distributed globally. The company recently filed an application with the European Medicines Agency to extend the approval to children from the age of 12. Regulators could authorize the vaccination for that age group by the end of the month.
Mpox cases spreading fast in Congo and beyond
Mpox, previously known as monkeypox, has continued to evolve and spread quickly in Congo, with new strains or clades of the virus causing multiple outbreaks with distinct epicenters in the country, putting different groups at risk. The newly arrived vaccines are known to be effective against the older clade 2 variant, but it’s not yet clear how well they will work against the newer, more lethal clade 1 strain.
Congo health officials have confirmed more than 22,000 mpox cases in the country and more than 716 deaths from the disease this year. But experts believe very low testing rates and under-reporting of cases mean the real mpox caseload in Congo and surrounding nations is likely much higher.
The virus has spread to 22 of Congo’s 26 provinces and 13 of its neighboring African nations. It has been declared a public health emergency by both the WHO and the Africa CDC, which have crafted a six-month, $600 million response plan.
Mpox infections have reached as far abroad as Sweden, Thailand and India, with most cases linked to recent travel to affected regions.
Morocco reported its first case this week — a 32 year old man who tested positive in Marrakech. In a statement, the Health Ministry said he was receiving treatment and was in a stable condition, and that none one he’d come into contact with was showing symptoms.
South Africa recorded its 25th case last week, a 38-year-old Cape Town man who had not traveled nor had contact with any suspected or confirmed other cases. In a statement, the South African Health Department said it had deployed a provincial outbreak response team to identify possible contacts, adding the protocol was for positive cases to be isolated at home.
The National Institute for Communicable Disease in South Africa says there are currently no mpox vaccines available in the country. That’s a significant concern for health officials in the country, which has a highly immunocompromised population, with close to 9 million people infected with HIV.
“We need to stop this outbreak now to ensure we don’t get a new mutation,” the Africa CDC’s Kaseya told journalists during a virtual news conference on Thursday.
More than 70% of mpox cases in Congo are currently in children, and the Africa CDC says four of every five deaths recorded are minors. Health officials say children are more vulnerable to mpox, a virus with similarities to smallpox. Experts believe older generations could still have some immunity to mpox from previous smallpox vaccinations.
Other diseases complicate mpox response in Congo
Eastern DRC is racked by conflict, largely between the army and militias, including the Rwandan-backed M23 group. The clashes have caused mass displacement of the population and made vaccination campaigns, for all diseases, far more complicated.
Even before the mpox outbreaks, Congo was facing one of the biggest human displacement crises in the world. According to the U.N. children’s charity, some 7 million people in the east of the country have fled their homes and more than 25 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance to survive, including almost 15 million children.
“Things are really moving fast — we are seeing cases going up in the whole province,” Marietta Nagtzaam, Congo country coordinator for the Doctors Without Borders charity, who is based in the hard-hit South Kivu region, told CBS News. “There is a lot of underreporting in an overburdened health system.”
South Kivu is divided into 34 health zones. In the Uvira zone, Nagtzaam said her organization, which goes by the French acronym MSF, had treated more than 850 patients over the last three months alone. A handful of those who made it to the medics still died with the disease.
“This clade of mpox [clade 1] is so new, we just don’t know enough, and the population is easily confused between measles and mpox, with similar looking lesions,” Nagtzaam said of the challenges facing her team.
MSF also works in the Fizi health zone, at two hospitals with isolation centers where medics are having to treat measles and mpox cases simultaneously, requiring separate isolation areas.
Arlette Bashizi/REUTERS
Diagnosing a sick child with very limited supplies, in an area with endemic measles, cholera, poor sanitation and little access to proper nutrition or clean water, has proven an immense challenge for the overburdened health workers.
“Fluid needs to be collected from the lesions by a health worker with protective gear, transported in a cool box on often non-existent or flooded roads to the capital of Bukavu to the testing lab. This alone is very difficult, then we need stock of the expensive PCR cartridges to test for mpox,” she explained, highlighting the logistical challenges.
“We would love to do contact tracing,” Nagtzaam added, “but the money isn’t there to test close contacts.”
A vast shortage of mpox vaccines in Africa
The Africa CDC said last month that it had started talks with Bavarian Nordic about manufacturing its mpox vaccine in Africa. The CDC’s Kaseya said transferring the technology required to do that to Africa would cut the cost of the vaccine by 80-90% on the continent.
The 250,000 vaccine doses now in Congo are far short of the 3.5 million the country’s Health Minister Samuel-Roger Kamba has said are needed urgently to stem the spread of the virus.
The WHO’s designation last month of mpox as a “public health emergency of international concern” was partly intended to spur nations around the world to assist in the response in Congo and other poor nations, as well as to prepare their own contingency measures.
Germany, Belgium and France have said they will donate 100,000 vaccines each, according to Kaseya. On Wednesday, the Reuters news agency quoted a Canadian government spokesperson as saying the country would send 200,000 doses.
The pledges of help come after criticism leveled at the developed world as African countries grappled with the last mpox outbreak in 2022, when they had no vaccines.
African health officials have told CBS News that some countries still have not been transparent about the number of vaccine doses they have in stock.
The Biden administration will provide Ukraine with controversial anti-personnel mines in its war against Russia, a U.S. official confirmed to CBS News Tuesday night.
Anti-personnel mines, or APLs, are designed to be used against people, not vehicles. They can be rapidly deployed and are meant to blunt the advances of ground forces, making them useful for Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s advances in Eastern Ukraine, the official said.
The U.S. sought commitments from the Ukrainians on their use to further limit the risk to civilians, the official said, noting that Ukrainians are committed to not employing the mines in areas populated with their own civilians.
The U.S.-provided APLs are different than the thousands of landmines being employed by Russia in eastern Ukraine in that they are “non-persistent,” meaning they become inert over a preset period of time, usually between four hours and two weeks, the official said. They are electrically fused and require battery power to detonate. Once the battery runs out, they will not detonate.
Tuesday marked 1,000 days since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. CBS News learned Sunday that President Biden had lifted restrictions on Ukraine’s use of U.S. weapons to conduct strikes deep inside Russia.
U.S.-supplied ATACMS were used Tuesday on targets inside Russia, U.S. officials confirmed to CBS News.
Ukraine has been one of the most mined countries in the world since Russia’s invasion in 2022, and Ukraine is inundated with APLs. They are known by deceptively innocent names such as “butterfly” or “petal” mines because they scatter like flower petals when they drop from the sky.
Getty Images
“Typically, several hundred of these at a time will just be liberally and indiscriminately spread across the territory,” Pete Smith, the Ukraine program manager for the HALO Trust, a nonprofit organization focused on ridding warzones of landmines, told “60 Minutes” in August. “They can rest on the roofs. They can sit in guttering. They can take years before they come back into society and into view.”
To date, 164 nations, including Ukraine, have signed onto the Mine Ban Treaty which prohibits the use of APLs. However, three dozen countries have not agreed to it, including Russia and the U.S.
In January 2020, then-President Donald Trump reversed an Obama-era policy which banned the use of APLs anywhere except on the Korean Peninsula. However, in June 2022, Mr. Biden reinstated the ban, except for APLs “required for the defense of the Republic of Korea.”
contributed to this report.
ORION TOWNSHIP, Mich. (CBS DETROIT) – At least two people were injured after a possible gas explosion and ensuing fire destroyed a condominium building Tuesday evening in Orion Township, Michigan, officials said. Another two people remain unaccounted for.
According to the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office, the explosion was reported at about 6:30 p.m. local time in the Keatington New Town Association condominium complex on Waldon Road, between Joslyn and Baldwin roads.
Orion Township Fire Chief Ryan Allen says the explosion destroyed a four-unit building, causing significant damage to one building and minimal damage to a few others. Allen says crews worked with utility providers DTE and Consumers Energy to control a gas leak.
Photo submitted by Orion Township resident
Allen says the two people hospitalized, a 72-year-old man and a 75-year-old woman, suffered critical injuries. Their current condition is unknown. An unknown number of others suffered minor injuries, he added.
Allen said crews were working to make contact with two people who are unaccounted for.
The sheriff’s office said no fatalities have so far been reported.
“Preliminary indications are it was a gas explosion but the exact cause has not been determined,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.
Orion Township is located just north of Detroit.
One resident who lives nearby told CBS News Detroit he was home with family when the explosion happened.
“We just heard this big boom [It] shuck my entire house. I look out the window, I see flares, I see fire just popping through the sky,” the resident said. “It felt like it was going to take a wall down. It felt like it happened at my house. I was terrified. It was so strong.”
Consumers Energy said in a statement that because firefighters were still battling the blaze, it did “not have additional information about the cause of the explosion or about the status of anyone in the building.”
The company said its crews will get on site once they are given the greenlight that it is safe to do so.
CBS News
Comedian Katt Williams often brags about passing Marine boot camp. The Marines say they have no record of it.
Los Angeles — Katt Williams, the Emmy-winning actor and renowned stand-up comedian, for years has claimed to have joined the U.S. Marine Corps as a teenager and successfully navigated the rigorous training only to be drummed out of the military when his superiors discovered he was a minor. The Marines told CBS News they have no record of him.
Dating back to at least 2016, Williams has claimed association with the U.S. Marine Corps when talking about his personal biography in video blogs, in his stand-up routines and in interviews viewed and heard by tens of millions of people. His claims of military service seem to not be attached to any of his critically acclaimed jokes or characters he has created for stage and screen but instead, a part of his journey towards comedy.
The U.S. Marine Corps tells CBS News there’s no record of Williams ever entering military service or attending any Marine Corps recruit training camps.
Multiple emails and phone calls were sent to Williams’ publicist, Amy Sisoyev, and his representatives at Creative Artists Agency, but no reply was returned for almost two weeks.
Earlier this year, Williams sat down for a nearly 3-hour interview with ESPN’s “First Take” correspondent Shannon Sharpe on his podcast, “Club Shay Shay.” The interview has racked up more than 83 million views on YouTube as of publication and is the most watched interview in YouTube’s history.
Sharpe, a former Denver Bronco and ex-NFL analyst for CBS Sports, asked Williams about being raised in Florida.
“I try to join the Marine Corps and they won’t accept me because I’m too young, and I’ve lied and told them I’m 16 and my family is moving down and I don’t have my ID but it’s coming. And so they [the Marines] let me go to the boot camp,” said Williams.
Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP
Similarly, on comedian Marc Maron’s podcast last year, Williams said, “And then I attempt to join the Marine Corps, and I go off to boot camp and I pass, and then they reveal that I’m too young, and they give me a little ceremony because I did pass, you know, oo-Rah.”
He added: “I wasn’t even 16. I wasn’t even 16. I was already — I had miscalculated it wrong. I thought that you know, by the time I got back I would be good, but I hadn’t turned 16 by the time boot camp was over.”
Maron, whose “WTF” podcast garners more than 55 million listens per year, asked Williams if he got through boot camp and about his ceremony.
Williams reaffirmed that he passed boot camp, saying, “When you come back everybody gets the ceremony and I was supposed to have been, probably put in the brig or court-martialed or something, but they didn’t treat me like that. … As far as the Marine Corps thing, whatever those commercials were selling, you remember those commercials back in that time … if you wanted to join a gang, the Marines was the gang to join.”
On Saturday, CBS News attended the Vulture Festival in Los Angeles where Williams was interviewed about his life and career by Jesse David Fox, a Vulture writer and host of “Good One: The Podcast About Jokes.” Williams is set to launch his multistate “Heaven on Earth” tour next year.
While Williams did not discuss his alleged short stint in the Marines, the comedian said “Thank God I tell the truth” when asked by Fox about his past statements in interviews.
CBS News filed a Freedom of Information Act request for records pertaining to Williams’ alleged enlistment in the Marine Corps.
Marine Corps officials searched for records pertaining to Williams using his full name — Micah Sierra Williams — and other identifying information such as his date of birth and social security number. Officials told CBS News that their database of official military personnel files dates back to the 1960s, housed at the National Personnel Records Center of the National Archives.
“We searched the files maintained by the Manpower Management Performance Branch but were unable to identify Mr. Williams as a member or former member of the U.S. Marine Corps,” wrote an official in response to CBS News’ public records request.
Marine Corps officials told CBS News that if Williams’ story was accurate, there would be records showing his entry into military service, his graduation and discharge, even if he fraudulently enlisted as a minor.
Army veteran Anthony Anderson, who runs “Guardians of Valor,” a popular social media website that investigates service member records, told CBS News that Williams’ claims are a “slap in the face of people who have earned the title of Marine.”
“Boot camp for the Marine Corps is not an easy task. To call yourself a Marine, you have to go through at least 13 weeks of boot camp and successfully navigate the crucible … people have died in training at boot camp trying to earn the title of Marine,” said Anderson.
While it’s unclear when exactly Williams began to claim he graduated from Marine boot camp, the earliest examples CBS News could find stemmed from Williams’ 2016 feud with actor and comedian Kevin Hart.
In a video that appears to have been recorded by Williams, addressing drug abuse allegations, the comedian says, “Ever since I got out of the Marine Corps, I can only breathe out of one nostril.”
That same year, Williams was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and battery charges after a fight at an apartment complex in Gainesville, Georgia, with a 17-year-old high school wrestler who was also charged, according to previous news reports. Williams pleaded not guilty and the case lingered on until earlier this year when local prosecutors decided to drop the case against Williams.
Soon after his arrest Williams spoke about the episode on stage, suggesting that he wasn’t actually put into a chokehold by the teenager and in fact, that Williams had let him win, adding, “I’m Semper Fi till I die, Marine Corps b—-. I passed motherf—ing boot camp at 16.”
Williams’ routine was removed from YouTube due to copyright infringement issues, but the video still exists in the reader forum on Military.com, a military news and culture website. A user posted the video to the website in 2016 and asked: “Katt Williams a Marine?”
