Orders have skyrocketed in the Danish laboratory Bavarian Nordic, the only one that manufactures an already approved vaccine against monkeypox, but its managers are convinced that they can meet the demand.
“The approval (from the American health authorities) received in 2019 (…) has suddenly become very, very relevant to international health,” says its vice president Rolf Sass Sørensen smiling at the company’s headquarters, in the port of Copenhagen.
Surprised by the spread of the disease outside the eleven African countries where it was endemic, Sass Sørensen says that they are able to absorb the demand despite only having a single production factory.
“With the current demand, we can easily supply the world market. We have a few million doses in bulk, we can put them in bottles and ensure that the current epidemic is treated,” he explains to AFP.
Bavarian Nordic has an annual production capacity of 30 million doses at its factory in the north of the Danish capital.
Your smallpox vaccine is a third-generation serum, a live vaccine that does not replicate in the human body.
It is marketed under the name Imvanex in Europe, where it has been licensed since 2013, Jynneos in the United States, and Imvamune in Canada.
– Numerous reservations –
The treatment requires two doses and was initially prescribed to treat smallpox in adults, a disease that has been considered eradicated for 40 years.
Three years ago it obtained the green light in the United States to be used against monkeypox and the laboratory is currently working to expand its European approval to this specific variant.
According to Sass Sørensen, the vaccine is “in stock in many countries” and can be applied before or after exposure to the disease.
“If you get vaccinated a few days after being exposed, you can still be protected,” he says.
Within the European Union, the Hera health authority, created as a result of the covid-19 pandemic, acquired almost 100,000 vaccines that will be made available to the 27 member countries, in addition to Norway and Iceland.
The first deliveries are expected at the end of June for the priority countries, the European authorities indicated.
The United States also announced the increase in its reserves with 500,000 supplementary doses, in addition to 100 million units of another smallpox vaccine from the French group Sanofi. Canada and Denmark did the same.
– Mass vaccination not recommended –
Beyond these announcements, the Danish laboratory jealously protects the nationality of its buyers.
“We do not reveal the names of the countries, but we have orders from all over the world: the United States, European countries, Asian countries, the Middle East,” says Sass Sørensen.
The amount of the contracts has not been made public but, for Bavarian Nordic, they represent income that has led it to increase its forecasts for 2022 four times in three weeks.
Despite the exponential increase in cases, the World Health Organization (WHO) does not recommend “mass” vaccination for now.
In France, the health authority recommended administering a single dose to people who are risk contacts and who were vaccinated against smallpox before 1980, except for those who suffer from immunosuppression.
The United States only advises immunization for contacts of cases.
An anti-smallpox drug produced by the Siga laboratory, tecovirimat, was approved by the European Medicines Agency for monkeypox at the beginning of the year, but it is not yet available in large quantities.
Normally benign, the disease usually disappears spontaneously after two to three weeks of flu-like symptoms followed by skin rashes.
From January 1 to June 15, the WHO has detected more than 2,100 cases and one death in 42 countries. Europe is at the center of the spread, with 1,773 confirmed cases, 84% of the world total.
In addition to smallpox, Bavarian Nordic produces vaccines against tick meningoencephalitis, rabies, Ebola, and is developing formulas against covid-19 and respiratory syncytial viruses.
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