DRC Expects First Mpox Vaccines Next Week

The Democratic Republic of the Congo hopes to receive its first doses of an mpox vaccine next week, following promises from Japan and the United States to help fight its outbreak.

That's according to Congolese health minister Samuel Roger Kamba Mulamba.

“I hope that the vaccines will arrive next week. You know, it's really a whole logistics chain, from our acceptance first and then a few administrative procedures before shipment. But our strategic vaccination response plan is already ready. We're just waiting for the vaccines to arrive.”

Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said in a statement that it was preparing to provide Congo with mpox vaccines and needles in cooperation with the World Health Organization and other partners.

Their arrival would help address a huge inequity that left African countries with no access to the two shots used in a 2022 outbreak, while the vaccines were widely available in Europe and the U.S.

Global vaccine group Gavi said last week it had up to $500 million to spend on getting shots to impacted countries.

The DRC's health minister said, "Gavi has offered to make the vaccines available and we agreed."

The World Health Organization declared mpox a global public health emergency last week for the second time in two years, as new variant clade lb spread rapidly in Africa.

The DRC has 16,700 recorded cases and over 570 deaths, the health minister said.

Congo is facing two outbreaks simultaneously: one caused by the endemic clade I and another due to a variant of it, Ib that spreads easily through both sexual contact and other close physical contact, as seems to be the case among children.

There are no vaccines or specific treatments for mpox available in Congo outside of clinical trials, although they are available in other countries.

Experts say work was underway to investigate the new variant's transmissibility and severity.