BOGOTÁ (AP) — The Japanese government announced Friday it was donating 25,000 monkeypox vaccines for Colombia, a country that lacks biological products to immunize its population.
Japanese Ambassador Takasugi Masahiro explained to the press that he will donate the KM Biologics company’s LC16 vaccine, developed between industry, academia and the Japanese government.
Colombian health authorities have confirmed 3,852 cases of monkeypox and no deaths, according to the latest available report on Nov. 28. Most are concentrated in Bogotá, the country’s capital, and in the central department of Antioquia.
Colombian Health Minister Carolina Corcho stressed that a “sustained decrease in infections” had been identified in recent weeks, however she believed that the vaccine will be a complementary action to epidemiological surveillance.
Vaccination will be prioritized for infected people and their close contacts, as well as those with casual sexual contact or HIV patients, the government said.
“The government of Japan sincerely hopes that this cooperation will contribute to the containment of monkeypox, not only in Colombia, but to global health and that this Japanese vaccine will be recognized worldwide,” said the Japanese ambassador.
The cooperation agreement between Colombia and Japan has already been signed, but the ambassador assured that there is still no fixed date for the arrival of the doses, although they hope it will be as soon as possible.
Colombia managed the doses with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). However, he has called for a “renegotiation” of vaccines and has looked for other alternatives to buy them.
The health minister indicated that the cooperation agreement with Japan does not include clauses that prevent the receipt of vaccines for legal reasons, as was the case with another pharmaceutical company, whose name he did not specify.
In Latin America, countries such as Ecuador and Chile have acquired vaccines and started immunization. Others, such as Peru, have pledged to acquire more than 9,800 doses of the Jynneos vaccine, from the Danish laboratory Bavarian Nordic. While in Argentina the government for now does not plan to access inoculants because it believes that the cases, which are around 500 in total, are not that many.
Monkeypox is an infectious disease characterized by the production of skin lesions, particularly on the face, hands and feet. It was first detected in Africa in the 1970s and has recently been reported from the rest of the world. According to the World Health Organization, it is mainly transmitted by direct or indirect contact with body fluids, blood, skin lesions or mucous membranes of infected animals.
