The World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Friday that the first vaccines against CoV will arrive in the "coming days" in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), one of the African countries hardest hit by the epidemic.
"We hope that the first delivery will take place in the coming days," and others should follow, said the director general of the UN agency, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, during a press conference in Geneva, after returning from the DRC.
According to Tim Nguyen of the WHO, about 230,000 doses of the MVA-BN vaccine, produced by the Danish pharmaceutical company Bavarian Nordic, would be "immediately available for shipment to affected areas."
The resurgence of mpox in Africa, which affects the DRC and other countries on the continent (notably Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda), and the appearance of a new variant (1b) prompted the WHO to trigger its highest level of global health alert on August 14.
As the DRC is the country most affected by the new variant, "the majority" of vaccines will be sent there, Dr. Tedros said.
Two subgroups of mpox circulate in the DRC: clade 1a, in the west of the country, and clade 1b, in the east.
Dr. Tedros said more than 18,000 suspected cases of mpox had been reported in the DRC since the beginning of the year, with 629 deaths: "This includes more than 5,000 cases and 31 deaths in the eastern provinces of North and South Kivu, where the new clade 1b strain has spread."
"The number of reported clade 1b cases has been increasing rapidly for several weeks. Fortunately, relatively few deaths have been reported in recent weeks," the WHO chief observed.
Outside the DRC, 258 cases of clade 1b have been confirmed in Burundi, 4 in Rwanda, 4 in Uganda, 2 in Kenya, 1 in Sweden and 1 in Thailand, according to the WHO.
MPOX, formerly known as monkeypox, is a viral disease that spreads from animals to humans but is also transmitted between humans, causing fever, muscle pain and skin lesions.
– “Six months” –
"WHO is working to accelerate access to and distribution of vaccines," said Dr. Tedros, while emphasizing that vaccines were not the only tools in the fight against the disease.
"We believe we can end these epidemics within the next six months," he also assured.
The Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) recommends the use of the MVA-BN and LC16 vaccines, which are produced by the Japanese company KM Biologics.
But they do not yet have full WHO prequalification, a long and complex process.
To address this situation, WHO has established an Emergency Use Listing, designed to expedite the availability of unlicensed medical products, such as vaccines, needed in the event of a public health emergency.
Products on this list can therefore be purchased and used by agencies such as the UN children's agency UNICEF.
Bavarian Nordic and KM Biologics finalized their application to the WHO on August 23 and their review is ongoing, said Dr. Mibongizi of the WHO.
But without waiting, "last week, I gave Gavi (the Vaccine Alliance) and UNICEF the green light to proceed with the purchase of vaccines, in parallel with the procedure for inclusion on the emergency list," said Dr. Tedros.
Furthermore, WHO is working with various partners to establish a coordination mechanism to allocate donated doses.
Dr. Tedros also noted that the DRC itself approved both vaccines in June this year, and that the government had directly requested countries with large vaccine reserves to donate doses.
Finally, the WHO is also working on plans to implement targeted vaccine use, as the WHO does not recommend widespread vaccination, said Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO's chief of epidemic and pandemic preparedness.
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