(Kinshasa) Vaccines against MPOX are arriving in dribs and drabs in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the center of the epidemic: 50,000 doses donated by the United States landed in Kinshasa on Tuesday, after 200,000 doses from the European Union arrived in the Congolese capital last week.
“The donation of 50,000 monkeypox vaccines (mpox) from the United States arrived today in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” announced in a message on X the United States Ambassador to the DRC, Lucy Tamlyn. This shipment also contained 15,000 vaccines funded by the Gavi Vaccine Alliance.
On Sunday, around 100,000 doses donated by the European Union arrived at Kinshasa airport. The EU, which sent the first vaccine donations to the DRC last Thursday, has sent a total of 200,000 doses since last week.
The Central African country worst affected by the virus in the world, the DRC, which now has 265,000 vaccines manufactured by the Danish laboratory Bavarian Nordic, is due to begin its vaccination campaign next month.
The only vaccine approved at this stage in Europe and the United States, this vaccine is only intended for adults. Trials are currently being conducted with a view to possible use on children over 12 years old. Another vaccine against mpox, used on adults and children, is authorized by Japan, with whom the DRC is in discussions for a possible supply.
Nearly 22,000 cases of contamination and 716 deaths linked to MPOX have been recorded in the DRC since January, according to the latest figures from the Congolese Public Health Institute responsible for organizing the response to the epidemic.
More than 60% of infections concern children, according to the African Union health agency (Africa CDC), which is coordinating with the World Health Organization (WHO) a continental plan to contain the epidemic, with a budget of 600 million dollars over six months.
In Africa, MPOX was present at the end of August in 14 countries including Burundi (796 cases), Congo-Brazzaville (162 cases) and the Central African Republic (45 cases), according to the Africa CDC.
Some 3.6 million vaccines in total intended for African countries have been secured, according to the AU agency.
Several MPOX epidemics are currently underway in central Africa. But the situation in the DRC has become more complicated with the emergence of a new variant called “clade 1b”, the danger and contagiousness of which are currently difficult to assess, according to several specialists.