The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) expects to receive its first doses of monkeypox vaccine next week, following pledges from the United States and Japan to help it combat the outbreak, the Congolese health minister said on Monday.
The World Health Organization declared monkeypox a global public health emergency last week for the second time in two years, due to the rapid spread in Africa of a new variant of the disease, known as clade Ib.
At a press conference on Monday, Health Minister Samuel Roger Kamba Mulamba said Japan and the United States had committed to supplying vaccines to Congo.
“We have just finished talks with USAID and the US government… I hope that next week we will see the vaccines arrive,” he told reporters.
Its arrival would help address a huge inequity that left African countries without access to the two shots used in a global outbreak of chickenpox in 2022, even though there were plenty of vaccines available in Europe and the United States.
Outside of clinical trials, neither vaccine has been available in the Congo or Africa, where the disease has been endemic for decades.
Global vaccine group Gavi said last week it had up to $500 million available to deliver vaccines to countries affected by the growing smallpox outbreak.
“Gavi has offered to provide vaccines and we have accepted,” said the Congolese health minister.
Monkeypox, a viral infection that causes pus-filled lesions and flu-like symptoms, is usually mild but can kill. Two strains are spreading in the Congo: the endemic form of the virus, clade I, and the new strain, clade Ib.
The virus is transmitted through close physical contact, including sexual contact, but unlike previous global pandemics such as Covid-19, there is no evidence that it spreads easily through the air.
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– 2024-08-24 21:54:12
