https://www.polity.org.za
Deepening Democracy through Access to Information
Home / News / African News RSS ← Back
Africa|Health
Africa|Health
africa|health
Close

Email this article

separate emails by commas, maximum limit of 4 addresses

Sponsored by

Close

Article Enquiry

Congo receives long-awaited mpox vaccine doses

Close

Embed Video

Congo receives long-awaited mpox vaccine doses

Mpox test tubes
Photo by Reuters

5th September 2024

By: Reuters

SAVE THIS ARTICLE      EMAIL THIS ARTICLE

Font size: -+

Democratic Republic of Congo received its first batch of mpox vaccines on Thursday, which health authorities hope will help curb an outbreak that has prompted the UN to declare a global public health emergency.

Congo is the epicentre of the outbreak, which has spread to neighbouring countries and elsewhere, but a lack of vaccines in Africa has hampered efforts to stop the spread of the sometimes deadly disease.

Advertisement

A plane carrying doses manufactured by Bavarian Nordic and donated by the European Union touched down in the capital Kinshasa around 13:00 local time, Reuters reporters at the airport said.

Congo's health minister, Samuel Roger Kamba Mulamba, told reporters the newly arrived vaccine had already proved its worth in the United States and would be rolled out to adults in Congo.

Advertisement

"We know which provinces are heavily affected, notably Equateur and South Kivu... The idea is to contain the virus as quickly as possible," he added.

This first delivery amounts to 99 000 doses and a further delivery on Saturday will take the total to 200 000 doses, said Laurent Muschel, the head of the EU Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA).

Overall, Europe aims to deliver 566 000 doses to wherever needs are greatest in the region, Muschel told Reuters. "Based on the number of cases, the next country (for deliveries) should be Burundi, but the country's medical agency must authorise it."

The arrival of the vaccine in Congo should start to address a huge inequity that has left African countries with no access to the two shots used in a 2022 global mpox outbreak, while they were widely available in Europe and the United States.

Congo has said it will launch its vaccination campaign on October 8 to allow time for a thorough awareness-raising campaign to overcome mistrust in some communities.

Mpox typically causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions, and can kill. There were 19 710 suspected cases of mpox reported in Congo in the first eight months of this year, according to the health ministry. Of those, 5 041 were confirmed and 655 were fatal.

It spreads through close contact, including sexual contact.

EMAIL THIS ARTICLE      SAVE THIS ARTICLE

To subscribe email subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za or click here
To advertise email advertising@creamermedia.co.za or click here

Comment Guidelines

About

Polity.org.za is a product of Creamer Media.
www.creamermedia.co.za

Other Creamer Media Products include:
Engineering News
Mining Weekly
Research Channel Africa

Read more

Subscriptions

We offer a variety of subscriptions to our Magazine, Website, PDF Reports and our photo library.

Subscriptions are available via the Creamer Media Store.

View store

Advertise

Advertising on Polity.org.za is an effective way to build and consolidate a company's profile among clients and prospective clients. Email advertising@creamermedia.co.za

View options

Email Registration Success

Thank you, you have successfully subscribed to one or more of Creamer Media’s email newsletters. You should start receiving the email newsletters in due course.

Our email newsletters may land in your junk or spam folder. To prevent this, kindly add newsletters@creamermedia.co.za to your address book or safe sender list. If you experience any issues with the receipt of our email newsletters, please email subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za