Next week, Congo anticipates receiving its initial mpox vaccines

The Congolese health minister stated on Monday that the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) anticipates receiving its initial doses of an mpox vaccine by the end of the week, following assurances from the United States and Japan that they will assist in combating the outbreak.

For the second time in two years, the World Health Organization declared mpox a global public health emergency last week due to the rapid spread of a new variant of the disease, clade Ib, in Africa.

On Monday, Health Minister Samuel Roger Kamba Mulamba announced that the United States and Japan had pledged to provide Congo with immunizations during a news conference.

“We have recently concluded our discussions with the U.S. government and USAID.” He informed reporters, “I anticipate that the vaccines will be delivered by the end of the upcoming week.”

Their arrival would assist in rectifying a significant disparity that resulted in African countries being deprived of access to the two vaccines utilized in a global mpox outbreak in 2022, despite the fact that the vaccines were widely available in Europe and the United States.

In an email to Reuters earlier on Monday, the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare of Japan announced that it was preparing to supply Congo with mpox vaccines and syringes in collaboration with the World Health Organization and other partners.

Masano Tsuzuki, the section chief of the ministry’s division of infectious disease prevention and control, stated that the ministry “aspires to offer the maximum amount of assistance.”

One of the manufacturers of an mpox vaccine is KM Biologics, which is headquartered in Japan. Bavarian Nordic (BAVA.CO), a Danish company, produces an additional vaccine for the disease, Jynneos. Japan maintains an inventory of the KM Biologics vaccine.

In Congo and throughout Africa, where the disease has been endemic for decades, neither of the injections has been available outside of clinical trials.

Last week, the global vaccine group Gavi announced that it had the capacity to allocate up to $500 million toward the provision of vaccines to countries that are currently facing the escalating mpox outbreak in Africa.

Congo’s health minister stated, “Gavi has extended an offer to distribute the vaccines, and we have consented to this arrangement.”

Mpox, a viral infection that results in pus-filled lesions and flu-like symptoms, is typically moderate; however, it has the potential to be fatal. The Congo is currently experiencing the transmission of two genotypes of the virus: the endemic clade I and the new clade Ib offshoot.

There is no evidence that the virus is readily transmitted through the air, unlike previous global pandemics such as COVID-19, where it is transmitted through intimate physical contact, including sexual contact.