The EMA gave the green light on Friday to “extend the indication of the smallpox vaccine Imvanex” to adults against monkeypox.
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The European Medicines Agency (EMA) approved, on Friday July 22, the use against monkeypox in adults of the Imvanex vaccine, initially intended to fight against human smallpox. This vaccine is already used in this context in France, where the first injections in connection with monkey pox began at the end of May.
The Imvanex vaccine, from Danish company Bavarian Nordic, has been approved in the EU since 2013 for the prevention of smallpox. It has been approved against monkeypox due to the similarity between this virus and the smallpox virus. First detected in humans in 1970, monkeypox is less dangerous and contagious than its cousin smallpox, eradicated in 1980.
On Thursday, the director general of the World Health Organization said to himself “worried” the increase in the number of cases of monkeypox worldwide. He sought advice from experts, before eventually declaring the“public health emergency of international concern”the WHO’s highest level of alert.
The situation has worsened in recent weeks with more than 15,300 cases now recorded in 71 countries, according to the latest figures from the United States health authorities, the most up-to-date.