Johannesburg — Health authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo said they would begin administering the vaccine on Thursday. Empox vaccination On October 2, a response plan was prepared about a week earlier than originally planned. A sharp increase in cases In a central African country, the World Health Organization on Friday gave pre-approval to the widely used mpox vaccine, which could make it easier for African countries to get doses if rich countries provide the necessary funding.
“This first prequalification of a vaccine against mpox is an important step in the fight against the disease, both in the context of the current outbreak in Africa and in the future,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General.
Congolese authorities approved two mpox vaccines for adult use in late June, as they rushed to curb the growing outbreak. But without prior approval from WHO, Gavi, the global vaccine alliance that helps low-income countries buy vaccines, could only accept donations from other countries. Friday’s announcement clears the way for Gavi to buy vaccines directly from pharmaceutical companies and ship them to affected countries.
Race for first mpox vaccine doses in hard-hit Congo
An initial 10-day vaccination campaign using vaccines donated from the United States and Europe will begin simultaneously in several of Congo’s hardest-hit regions and target only adults working in health care, the sex industry and other frontline communities, according to Cris Kacita Osako, coordinator of the Congolese monkeypox response committee.
U.S. Ambassador Lucy Tomlin announced in a social media post Tuesday that 50,000 doses of the Mfox vaccine donated by the U.S. government have arrived in Congo. Received 200,000 doses late last week In the European Union.
Dr. Jean Kaseya of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention welcomed the shipment of vaccines, urging the United States to “continue providing support as we need to vaccinate 10 million people in Africa over the next six months.”
Kaseya said Africa CDC has requested an additional $599 million from the United States to support a “continental response to the outbreak.” The money would help Congo and other poor countries secure significantly more vaccines through the Gavi alliance.
The mpox vaccine, manufactured by Denmark-based Bavarian Nordic, has been approved for use in adults and distributed worldwide. The company recently submitted an application to the European Medicines Agency to extend its approval to children 12 years of age and older. The regulator could approve the vaccine for that age group by the end of the month.
Mpox cases are spreading rapidly in Congo and beyond.
Formerly known as Mpox monkeypoxAs it continues to evolve and spread rapidly in Congo, new strains, or clades, of the virus have caused several outbreaks with distinct epicenters in the country, putting multiple groups at risk. The newly introduced vaccines are known to be effective against the older clade 2 strains, but it is unclear how effective they will be against the newer, more virulent clade 1 strains.
Congolese health authorities have confirmed more than 22,000 cases of mpox and 716 deaths in the country this year. But experts believe the true number of mpox cases in Congo and neighboring countries is likely much higher due to very low testing rates and a lack of case reporting.
The virus has spread to 22 of Congo’s 26 provinces and 13 provinces in neighboring African countries. Declaring a public health emergency WHO and Africa CDC have developed a six-month, $600 million response plan.
Mpox infection has spread overseas to countries such as Sweden, Thailand, and India, with most cases linked to recent travel to affected areas.
Morocco reported its first case this week, a 32-year-old man in Marrakech who tested positive. The health ministry said in a statement that he is receiving treatment and is in stable condition, and that none of his contacts have shown symptoms.
South Africa recorded its 25th case last week, a 38-year-old Cape Town man who had not traveled or been in contact with any other suspected or confirmed cases. The South African Ministry of Health said in a statement that a provincial outbreak response team had been deployed to identify possible contacts, adding that the protocol was for positive cases to isolate themselves at home.
The National Institute of Communicable Diseases in South Africa says the mpox vaccine is currently not available in the country. This is a major concern for health authorities in a country with a very weak immune system, with an estimated 9 million people living with HIV.
“We need to stop this outbreak now so that no new mutations emerge,” Africa CDC’s Kaseya told reporters during a virtual news conference Thursday.
More than 70% of Mpox cases in Congo are now children, and four out of five recorded deaths are minors, according to the Africa CDC. Health officials say children are more susceptible to Mpox, a virus similar to smallpox. Experts believe older generations may still have immunity to Mpox from previous smallpox vaccinations.
Other diseases complicate the mpox response in Congo.
Eastern DRC is largely plagued by conflict between the military and militias, as well as the Rwandan-backed M23 group. These conflicts have led to mass displacement of the population, making vaccination campaigns for all diseases much more complicated.
Even before the mpox outbreak, Congo was facing one of the world’s largest human displacement crises. According to the UN children’s charity, some 7 million people have fled their homes in the country’s eastern region, and more than 25 million need humanitarian assistance to survive, including about 15 million children.
“Things are moving really fast. We are seeing cases rising across the province,” Marietta Nagtzam, Congolese country coordinator for Doctors Without Borders in hard-hit South Kivu province, told CBS News. “There is a huge underreporting in our overburdened health system.”
South Kivu is divided into 34 health zones. Nagtzaam said her organization, known by its French acronym MSF, in Uvira zone has treated more than 850 patients in the past three months alone. The few who have reached medical staff have still died from the disease.
“This mpox clade (clade 1) is so new, we don’t know enough, and this group could easily be confused with measles and mpox, which have similar lesion appearances,” Nagtzaam said of the challenges her team faced.
MSF is also working in two hospitals in the Fiji Health Area, which have isolation centres. The medical staff here need separate isolation areas to treat patients with measles and empox at the same time.
Arlette Bashizi/Reuters
In an area where measles and cholera are endemic, sanitation is poor, and access to adequate nutrition or clean water is rare, diagnosing sick children with very limited supplies has proven to be an enormous challenge for overworked health workers.
“Health workers wearing protective gear have to collect fluid from the lesions, place it in a cooler and transport it to the capital, Bukavu, on roads that are often non-existent or flooded, to a laboratory. This alone is very difficult, and then you have to stockpile expensive PCR cartridges to test for mpox,” she explained, highlighting the logistical challenges.
“We would like to do contact tracing,” Nagtzaam added. “But we don’t have the funds to test close contacts.”
There is a huge shortage of mpox vaccine in Africa
Africa CDC said last month it had begun talks with Bavarian Nordic about manufacturing the mpox vaccine in Africa. Transferring the technology needed to Africa could cut vaccine costs on the continent by 80-90%, CDC’s Kaseya said.
There are currently only 250,000 doses of vaccine available in Congo, far short of the 3.5 million doses that Congo’s Health Minister Samuel-Roger Kamba says are urgently needed to stop the spread of the virus.
The WHO’s designation of mpox as a “public health emergency of international concern” last month was partly intended to encourage countries around the world to help Congo and other poor countries respond and to prepare their own emergency preparedness.
According to Kaseya, Germany, Belgium and France have each pledged to donate 100,000 doses. On Wednesday, Reuters quoted a Canadian government spokesperson as saying Canada would send 200,000 doses.
The pledge of help comes after African countries, which were last hit by the Empox outbreak in 2022, criticized rich countries for failing to have vaccines available at all.
African health authorities told CBS News that some countries are still not being transparent about how many vaccine doses they have in stock.
Sarah Carter
