In June, Bavarian Nordic sent 15,000 doses of its vaccine to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where the majority of cases have been detected.
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has called for “global solidarity”, pointing out that the region needs 10 million vaccine doses but currently has access to just 200,000. The agency confirmed it will also consider whether to declare a continental emergency this week.
The virus has now been reported in at least 13 African countries this year. In the past month, four countries — Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda — have reported mpox cases for the first time. There have been 517 deaths from 17,541 confirmed and suspected human cases in 2024 so far.
Concern has been growing over the outbreak in recent weeks after a new and more deadly strain of the mpox virus spread from the DRC to neighboring countries.
