The World Health Organization said on Friday its partners like Gavi and Unicef can start buying mpox vaccines before they are approved in a bid to get inoculations to Africa faster as the continent battles an escalating outbreak of the virus.

Traditionally, organisations like Gavi, which helps lower-income countries buy vaccines, can only start purchasing shots once they have approval from the WHO. But the rules have been relaxed in this instance to get talks moving, as the WHO’s approval is due in a few weeks.

Two vaccines, made by Denmark’s Bavarian Nordic and Japan’s KM Biologics, are already approved by regulators around the world, including the United States and Japan, and have been in widespread use for mpox since 2022. Around 1.2 million people have had Bavarian Nordic’s vaccine in the United States alone. The WHO is expected to grant an emergency licence to the shots in September.

(Reuters)