(Kinshasa) The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) received its first shipment of MPOX vaccines on Thursday, released by the European Union and sent by plane from Denmark, the epicentre of the epidemic expected to obtain 200,000 doses in total this week.
A first batch of 99,100 of the precious vaccines is scheduled to land at 7:10 a.m. ET at Kinshasa International Airport, according to the African Union’s health agency (Africa CDC). A second flight carrying the rest of the cargo is expected to arrive by the end of the week.
“We are very happy with the arrival of this first batch of vaccines in the DRC,” Jean Kaseya, director general of Africa CDC, told AFP on Wednesday.
By far the country most affected by the virus, the DRC has recorded more than 19,000 cases of the disease previously called monkeypox since January, and more than 650 deaths, according to figures released Tuesday by the Ministry of Health.
The government plans to begin rolling out vaccines this weekend, according to the WHO. In the vast central African country, 62% of confirmed cases have been among children, according to the Africa CDC. Four out of five deaths have also been among children.
The WHO had promised last week a first delivery “in the coming days”, specifying that around 230,000 doses of the MVA-BN vaccine from the Danish pharmaceutical laboratory Bavarian Nordic were “immediately available to be sent to the regions affected” by the virus.
“Relatively few deaths”
The Africa CDC confirmed that the vaccines sent this week are from the Danish manufacturer.
The aid to the country, which is among the five poorest in the world, according to the World Bank, was released by the European Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA), overseen by the European Commission and created in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The resurgence of the disease in Africa and the emergence of a new variant (clade 1b) prompted the WHO last month to trigger its highest level of global alert. The danger and contagiousness of clade 1b are, however, difficult to assess for the time being, according to several specialists.
In Africa, the virus is present in thirteen countries, including Burundi (796 cases), Congo-Brazzaville (162 cases) and the Central African Republic (45 cases), according to figures from the Africa CDC dated August 27.
In the DRC, two subgroups of MPOX are circulating: clade 1a, in the west of the country, and clade 1b, in the east. According to the WHO, cases due to clade 1b have increased rapidly over the past several weeks, but “relatively few deaths have been reported.”
The Congolese Minister of Health called on the population this week to respect barrier gestures to wage what he called a “health war”.
The United States, Japan, but also Spain, France and Germany have promised vaccines to African countries.
Nigeria, the first African country to receive the vaccine, recently received a delivery of 10,000 doses. These Bavarian Nordic vaccines were donated by the United States.
The mpox virus spreads from animals to humans, but is also transmitted between humans, causing fever, muscle aches and skin lesions.