2024-09-19 16:22:53
These first hundreds of vaccinations have “targeted seven districts (…) which share a border with the Democratic Republic of Congo [RDC] »detailed Ngashi Ngongo, chief of staff and head of the agency’s executive office, during a press conference. In the DRC, vaccinations will begin “the first week of October”said Jean Kaseya, the director general of Africa CDC, warning: “The mpox is not under control.”
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The Africa CDC has recorded 2,912 new cases, 374 new confirmed cases and 14 deaths on the continent in one week, bringing the total number of detected cases to 29,152, the number of confirmed cases to 6,105 and the number of deaths to 738. In Africa, the epidemic is now present in fifteen countries.
The resurgence of MPOX on the continent and the emergence of a new variant (clade 1b) prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) to trigger its highest level of global alert in mid-August. Clade 1b has been identified in the DRC, Burundi, Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda, according to the Africa CDC.
The MVA-BN vaccine, prequalified by the WHO
MPOX, formerly known as monkeypox, is a viral disease that spreads from animals to humans, but is also transmitted between humans, causing fever, muscle pain and skin lesions. So far, some 200,000 doses of vaccine have been delivered to the DRC by the European Union (EU), and about 50,000 by the United States. The DRC has a population of some 100 million.
The WHO announced on September 13 that it had prequalified the MVA-BN vaccine, allowing specialized agencies of the United Nations (UN), such as the Vaccine Alliance and the UN children’s agency (UNICEF), as well as governments, to accelerate orders.
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That “will help communities on the front lines of the emergency in Africa and beyond”said Yukiko Nakatani, WHO assistant director-general for access to medicines and health products. The vaccine, manufactured by Bavaria Nordic, can be given to people over 18 years of age in two doses given four weeks apart.
Available data show that a single-dose MVA-BN vaccine administered before exposure has an estimated efficacy of 76% in protecting people against MPOX, with the two-dose regimen achieving an estimated efficacy of 82%, the organization details, which specifies that vaccination after exposure is less effective than vaccination before exposure.
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