THE Democratic Republic of the Congo has received its first batch of mpox vaccines, which health authorities hope will help curb an outbreak that has prompted the United Nations to declare a global public health emergency.
The Central African country of about 100 million people is at the epicentre of an mpox outbreak that the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global public health emergency last month.
A plane carrying vaccine doses donated by the European Union touched down in the capital Kinshasa around 1pm local time (12:00 GMT), the Reuters news agency reported.
Congo’s Health Minister Samuel Roger Kamba Mulamba told reporters the newly arrived vaccine had already proved its worth in the United States and would be rolled out to adults in DR Congo.
“We know which provinces are heavily affected, notably Equateur and South Kivu … The idea is to contain the virus as quickly as possible,” he added.
The vaccines come from the Danish pharmaceutical laboratory Bavarian Nordic. It is the only vaccine approved in Europe and the United States and is only intended for adults. Trials are currently being conducted for potential use on children over the age of 12.
The first delivery amounts to 99,000 doses and a further delivery on Saturday will take the total to 200,000 doses, said Laurent Muschel, the head of the EU Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA).
Overall, Europe aims to deliver 566,000 doses to wherever needs are greatest in the region, Muschel told Reuters.
“It shows the solidarity between the European Union with Africa and also our capacity to react quickly,” he added.The first delivery amounts to 99,000 doses and a further delivery on Saturday will take the total to 200,000 doses, said Laurent Muschel, the head of the EU Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA).
More than 17,500 mpox cases and 629 deaths have been reported in the DRC since the start of the year, according to the WHO. Both strains – clade 1b and clade 1a – are present in the country.
The WHO also declared an emergency on August 14 because of a surge in cases of the new clade 1b strain.
