The Democratic Republic of the Congo and other affected African countries intend to start vaccinating against mpox within days, reports Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).
The Africa CDC has been collaborating with the countries experiencing mpox outbreaks on communications strategies and the logistics of distributing the vaccines that are due to arrive, following commitments from the European Union vaccine producers (Bavarian Nordic), the US and Japan, reports Reuters.
Last week, the World Health Organization declared the mpox outbreak a global public health emergency as a new variant of the disease spread through DRC and other countries.
“End of next week vaccines will start to arrive in the DRC and other countries," Africa CDC Director General Jean Kaseya told a briefing.
"We need to make sure that the supply chain management, the logistics are ready...to ensure that this vaccine will be safely stored and can be safely administered to people who need it."
According to Kaseya, research into the efficiency of different vaccines will continue while the shots are administered, to better understand which vaccines are most effective in different contexts.
According to the Africa CDC, African states reported over 1 400 additional cases of mpox in the past week. This brings the total number of cases in the 12 African countries where mpox has been detected to almost 19 000 since the beginning of the year.
During a post-Cabinet media briefing in Pretoria on August 22, Minister in The Presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni reported that the total number of positive cases recorded in South Africa stood at 24, including three deaths, 19 recoveries and two active cases undergoing isolation.
The Cabinet believes that the outbreak in South Africa will remain contained, and urges the public to support the government's efforts and practise heightened personal hygiene to prevent the spread of the disease.
