Africa to secure nearly 1M mpox vaccines
BRAZZAVILLE, CONGO—The African Union’s health watchdog on Wednesday said it was close to securing almost 1 million mpox vaccine doses, urging manufacturers to share the vaccine-making technology to battle the disease.
Africa is on the front line of the fight against mpox, with the World Health Organization (WHO) declaring an international emergency earlier this month over the viral disease’s spread.
“We are moving towards securing nearly a million doses,” of mpox vaccines, Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) director-general Jean Kaseya told a WHO regional meeting in Congo-Brazzaville.
Those include 215,000 doses from vaccine maker Bavarian Nordic, 100,000 doses from France, almost 100,000 doses from Germany and about 500,000 doses from Spain.
Kaseya urged Danish manufacturer Bavarian Nordic to share the know-how needed for the vaccines to be made locally.
Africa has secured less than 10 percent of the estimated $245 million it needs to fight a surging mpox outbreak on the continent, Africa CDC chief of staff Ngashi Ngongo said at the WHO meeting.
$245 million
Africa CDC has pulled together a budget to determine the amount of money available for the mpox response and the resources it needs to mobilize.
“We’ve come to the first estimate of $245 million,” Ngongo said.
Democratic Republic of Congo’s government has committed $10 million to support the fight against the outbreak while the African Union has approved $10.4 million, Ngongo said.
Therefore, about $20 million is currently available for the response, he said.
“The current gap where we stand today is about $224 million that we are looking for,” he said.
Mpox, a viral infection that causes pus-filled lesions and flu-like symptoms, is usually mild but can kill.
Formerly known as monkeypox, mpox is a viral disease transmitted from animals to humans that can also be passed from human to human.
