Countries donate mpox vaccines to combat outbreak in Africa

Some countries have pledged to donate doses of mpox vaccines to combat an outbreak of the disease in Africa after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared it a global public health emergency in August for the second time in two years.

Such donations are meant to address the huge inequity that left African nations with no access to the shots used during the global outbreak in 2022.

The Democratic Republic of Congo, the epicentre of the current outbreak, launched its first mpox vaccination campaign on Oct. 5.

Below is a list of countries that have promised to donate doses they hold, made by Denmark’s Bavarian Nordic or Japan’s KM Biologics:

CANADA

Canada will donate up to 200,000 vaccine doses, a government spokesperson said on Sep. 12. The number of doses to be donated depends on the receiving countries’ capacity for storage and administration.

FRANCE

France will donate 100,000 doses based on “locally identified needs”, its health ministry said on the Q&A section of its website, last updated on Sept. 16.

GERMANY

Germany will donate 100,000 doses from its military stocks to help contain the outbreak in the short term, a government spokesperson said on Aug. 26.

JAPAN

Japan has pledged to donate 3 million doses of KM Biologics’ LC16 vaccine, the largest number of doses pledged to date, the WHO said on Sep. 13.

SPAIN

Spain will donate 500,000 doses, or 20% of its stockpile, its health ministry said on Aug. 27. It has also urged the European Commission to propose that all EU countries donate 20% of their respective stock of the vaccine.

UNITED STATES

U.S. President Joe Biden pledged in September that the U.S. would donate 1 million doses of Bavarian Nordic’s vaccine and at least $500 million to African countries to support their response to the outbreak.

The U.S. State Department said on Sept. 24 it had delivered 10,000 doses to Nigeria and 50,000 doses to Congo, with further 300,000 doses ready to be disbursed in coordination with Gavi and WHO.

EUROPEAN UNION

The EU and its member states are donating at least 566,500 doses of Bavarian Nordic’s vaccine to African countries, including more than 215,000 doses donated by the bloc’s Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA) in cooperation with the Danish vaccine maker.

Additional 351,500 doses will be sent via the Team Europe initiative, comprising of the EU and its members. Those will mainly come from France, Germany, Spain, Malta, Portugal, Luxembourg, Croatia, Austria, Poland, and potentially some other member states.

GLOBAL ORGANISATIONS

Gavi, an international public-private alliance which co-funds vaccine purchases for low-income countries, said on Sept. 18 it would buy 500,000 doses of Bavarian Nordic’s vaccine, due to be delivered this year.

Bavarian said on Sept. 26 it had signed an agreement with UNICEF for 1 million doses to African countries, including the 500,000 committed by Gavi.

(Inputs from Reuters)