Three weeks after the World Health Organization deemed the mpox outbreaks in 12 African nations a worldwide emergency, the first supply of vaccine for the disease arrived in the capital of Congo on Thursday, according to the country’s officials.
The European Union provided the 100,000 doses of the MVA-BN vaccine—produced by the Danish company Bavarian Nordic—through HERA, the organization that oversees health crises inside the EU. More 100,000 are anticipated to be delivered on Saturday, according to Congolese officials.
Following the vaccine delivery, Congo’s Health Minister Roger Kamba informed media that UNICEF will oversee the immunization drive in the most affected districts. However, it was still unclear when the immunization campaign will start.
Western allies including the US and the EU have committed to providing some 380,000 doses of the mpox vaccine, according to a statement made to reporters last week by Dr. Jean Kaseya, director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That is less than 15% of the 3 million pills that, according to officials, are required to put a stop to the mpox epidemics in the Congo, which is the epicenter of the worldwide health problem.
According to the organization, the number of mpox cases increased by 200% in the previous week, with over 22,800 cases and 622 deaths reported throughout the continent. In Congo, where the novel mpox form was initially discovered and where children under the age of 15 account for the majority of illnesses and fatalities, mpox is most common.
Rich nations promptly responded to the worldwide mpox epidemic in 2022 by releasing vaccinations and cures from their stockpiles. Nevertheless, despite cries from African governments, only few dosages have made it there, resulting in a significant disparity.
The European Union stated that the MVA-BN vaccine is approved for use in adults and has previously been used in Europe and the United States. The European Medicines Agency is now reviewing further information in order to potentially administer it to youngsters between the ages of 12 and 17 by the end of the month.
HERA Director-General Laurent Muschel stated that 215,000 doses were committed to and bought for an unknown sum with the express purpose of being delivered to Congo.
Last Monday, the United States announced that it had given 10,000 doses of the mpox vaccine to Nigeria, a country where the illness is widespread. Since the current outbreaks, this is the first contribution to Africa that is known to exist. The Nigerian CDC reports that 40 cases of the virus have been reported in Nigeria so far this year.
Before the illness sparked the 2022 outbreak in more than 70 nations, mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, had been spreading virtually unnoticed throughout Africa for years, according to Dr. Dimie Ogoina, the chair of the WHO’s mpox emergency committee, who spoke to reporters last month.
“The global outbreak in 2022 is not the same as what we are seeing in Africa right now,” he stated. Although the majority of the victims of that outbreak were homosexual and bisexual males, mpox is now spreading throughout Africa through sexual contact as well as intimate contact with young people, expectant mothers, and other susceptible populations.
Furthermore, Ogoina claimed that while the majority of adults over 50 were probably protected from mpox by smallpox vaccinations, this was not the case for the majority of young people in Africa.
A coordinated response strategy for the epidemics is being developed, according to the Africa CDC, and will be given to African heads of state for review during a conference in September.
