Disparities in Monkeypox Vaccines

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Disparities in Monkeypox Vaccines
Current health pandemics have demonstrated the extent of disparities across racial, ethnic, and national lines. Today, the states across the planet are attempting to respond to the monkeypox virus outbreak. The illness was previously considered endemic to some parts of Central and West Africa. However, more prosperous countries now face the pandemic. These countries face vaccine shortages despite being wealthier. Despite the African countries experiencing higher mortality rates due to the pandemic, they have been left out of the vaccine distribution. The focus of this paper is to apply such concepts as globalization, nationalism, and modern imperialism to explain health inequity and vaccine disparity during the monkeypox outbreak.
The racial disparities in the monkeypox response dominate current news media. The vaccinations currently taking place in the United States reveal that over 50% of the recipients are white, 25% are Hispanic, 10% are Blacks, and 10% are Asian (Stobbe et al.). Several explanations exist, most of which explain the overall health disparities across the country. For example, lack of trust in doctors and government health efforts prevent Black men from seeking healthcare, in this case, the monkeypox vaccines. The disparities present an even more significant challenge since the populations with less access to vaccination also exhibit the greatest risk of infection. In this case, the best explanation of this scenario is arguably the socioeconomic factors of health. In this case, economic instability, quality and access to education, access and quality of healthcare, and neighborhood and environment cause the disparities in accessing vaccines (Roj and Jankowiak 2). Blacks often live in poorer neighborhoods with fewer health facilities and other amenities. Their relatively lower levels of education also imply that their knowledge of the health issues is limited, which inhibits care-seeking behaviors.
The issue of trust stems from graver problems that perpetuate health disparities. According to Greenwood and MacDonald, vaccine mistrust is a legacy of colonialism. In the Americas, the natives tend to hesitate to accept vaccines and other healthcare services. Their history includes death and near annihilation during the colonial period and the conquests. Today, the death and devastation emanate from lack of access to or hesitancy in taking vaccines for such outbreaks as polio, smallpox, and even the current pandemics of monkeypox and COVID-19. Such scenarios exist in countries where minorities are disproportionately affected. However, a global outlook paints a different picture explaining the relationship between wealthy and developing countries, dating back to the colonial days.
As mentioned earlier, African countries are cut off from the vaccine distribution despite having a higher mortality rate from monkeypox. The new colonialism involves rich countries producing and keeping surplus vaccines instead of distributing them to the African countries that need such products the most (Olla). For instance, the US once held vaccines enough to vaccinate three times the population of 130 countries, yet to administer a single dose of COVID...