FRANKFURT: Germany will donate 100,000 mpox vaccine doses to countries in Africa suffering from a surge in cases, the government said on Monday.

The vaccines will come from German military stocks and will be made available “in the short term”, government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit told reporters.

The aim is “to support in solidarity the international efforts to contain mpox on the African continent”, he said.

The move will see Germany donate nearly all of its mpox vaccine reserves, which total around 118,000 doses, according to the defence ministry.

DR Congo no longer expects to receive first delivery of vaccines this week

Germany was also providing financial support to the World Health Organisation (WHO) as well as supporting partners in Africa through the Gavi vaccine alliance, Hebestreit said.

In the medium term, Germany would work with European partners to help the African Union set up local vaccine production, he added.

The WHO this month declared the surge of mpox cases from the Democratic Republic of Congo to other African nations to be a global health emergency. It has also called for greater production and sharing of vaccines.

France announced last week it was donating 100,000 mpox vaccine doses to affected countries, while the US has said it would donate 50,000 doses to DR Congo.

‘We’re waiting’

Democratic Republic of Congo no longer expects to receive its first delivery of mpox vaccines this week, the head of its response team said on Monday, as Congo battles a new variant of the virus that has spread beyond its borders.

On Aug 19, Congo’s health minister said the Central African country hoped to receive its first doses of a vaccine by this week, following promises from the United States and Japan to help it fight its outbreak.

But asked whether Congo would begin receiving the doses this week, Cris Kacita, the head of Congo’s response team, told Reuters: “No. There are still several processes to follow.” He said the Congolese pharmaceutical regulatory agency would first need to be in touch with Danish drug-maker Bavaria Nordic for guidance before the vaccines arrive in the country.

“So we’re waiting,” Kacita said.

Bavarian Nordic, one of the few drug firms that currently has an mpox vaccine available, said in mid-August it had informed the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention that it can manufacture 10 million doses of the vaccine by the end of 2025. It said it could already supply up to 2 million doses this year.

The vaccine doses’ arrival would help to address a huge inequity that left African countries with no access to the two shots used in a 2022 global mpox outbreak, while the vaccines were widely available in Europe and the United States.

While mpox has been known for decades, a new more deadly and more transmissible strain — known as Clade 1b — has driven the recent outbreak.

Since January 2023, there have been more than 27,000 suspected cases and 1,100 deaths in Congo, according to government figures, mainly among children.

Mpox vaccines have already been made available in more than 70 countries outside Africa.

The first case in Europe was reported in Sweden earlier this month.

The virus can spread from animals to humans but also between humans through close physical contact.

Published in Dawn, August 27th, 2024