The Democratic Republic of Congo, the epicenter of the MPOX outbreak, began a vaccination campaign against the virus on Saturday in the eastern city of Goma, AFP reporters said.
The launch, originally scheduled for last Wednesday, was delayed by three days due to logistical difficulties getting the vaccine across the vast central African country with poor infrastructure.
The first vaccines were administered to hospital staff, and a program for the general population was scheduled to begin on Monday in the east of the country, where the current outbreak began a year ago.
“As a doctor, I’m on the front lines and I’m always in contact with sick people…I want to protect myself,” Janine Muhawi, the first person to receive the vaccine, told reporters.
Local health authorities and NGO workers set up large tents to administer vaccines and unfurled banners with the message “mpox exists.”
DRC has so far received 265,000 doses of vaccines, including donations from the United States and the European Union.
But it is still waiting for millions more promised doses to arrive from France, Japan and the United States.
Since the start of the year, the country, one of the world’s poorest, has recorded more than 30,000 mpox infections and 988 deaths, Health Minister Samuel Roger Kamba said.
70% of the deaths were children under 5 years old.
“It’s not a mass vaccination campaign…The strategy is to vaccinate those most at risk,” Kamba told a news conference in the capital Kinshasa on Friday.
“As you can imagine, in a country of 100 million people, 265,000 doses is not going to solve the problem.”
He said the aim was to target priority groups such as people with pre-existing health conditions and healthcare workers.
– Waiting for pediatric administration –
DRC’s current vaccine doses, produced by Danish pharmaceutical company Bavarian Nordic, are intended only for adults.
The DRC is in talks to secure further supplies from Japan, where another mpox vaccine has been approved for use in both adults and children.
Kamba said Japan had committed to sending 3 million doses.
President Joe Biden said last month that the United States plans to donate 1 million doses of the mpox vaccine to African countries.
“We stand ready to commit $500 million and donate one million doses of MPOX vaccine to help African countries prevent and respond to MPOX,” he told the United Nations General Assembly in New York. .
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced Friday that it has approved the first diagnostic test for mpox for use.
This test can detect the virus in swabs taken from human lesions.
Kamba said WHO had promised DRC about 4,500 tests, but did not give a date for their arrival.
Scientists discovered the disease, formerly known as monkeypox, in monkeys kept for research in Denmark in 1958.
It was first discovered in humans in 1970 in what is now the DRC.
The disease can cause a painful rash, fever, aches and fatigue, and in some cases can lead to death.
According to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), MPOX has been detected in 16 African countries so far this year.
This virus became internationally famous in May 2022. A strain known as clade 2b has spread around the world, primarily affecting homosexual and bisexual men.
In July 2022, the WHO declared a public health emergency of international concern, the highest alert level.
The virus is currently circulating in 16 African countries, according to the Africa CDC.
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