President of the United States Joe Biden declared on Tuesday that one million doses of the mpox vaccine and a minimum of $500 million will be sent to African nations in order to aid in their containment of the outbreak.
Confirming what Reuters had previously reported, Biden made the declaration at the UN General Assembly in New York and urged other nations to do the same.
“We have to act fast to combat mpox,” stated Biden.
After an epidemic of the virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that raised concerns and spread to neighbouring countries like India, the WHO designated mpox a global public health emergency in August for the second time in two years.
Mpox can spread through close contact. Usually mild, it is fatal in rare cases. It causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions on the body.
The outbreak in Congo began with the spread of an endemic strain, known as clade I. But a new variant, clade Ib, appears to spread more easily through routine close contact, including sexual contact. However, a novel variation known as clade Ib seems to disseminate more readily through regular intimate contact, which includes intercourse.
An mpox outbreak in Africa, where donated shots fall well short of what is needed, could be contained by wealthy nations with several hundred million doses of vaccines, according to a Reuters tally of official declarations, papers, and estimates from non-governmental organisations.
It is anticipated that the newly donated doses from the United States will primarily come from a stockpile and will be of the Bavarian Nordic (BAVA.CO), a new tab vaccine known as Jynneos in the United States. According to the U.S. source, the government anticipates that the donated vaccines will be distributed by Gavi, a public-private partnership that helps low-income nations with the cost of vaccine purchasing.
“We feel really strongly that Gavi is the multilateral institution that is best positioned to procure and equitably distribute vaccines,” added the official.
Gavi announced last week that it would purchase 500,000 doses of the vaccine from Bavarian Nordic, its first purchase to combat the outbreak.
Along with pushing for more vaccines to be produced in low- and middle-income nations, the Biden administration is collaborating with Brazil to determine how the Group of 20 can help with the mpox response.
According to the U.S. source, no manufacturer in Africa is now capable of producing the complicated medicinal ingredient required to create the vaccine.
Global health law specialist at Georgetown University Lawrence Gostin observed, “Most meaningful is Biden’s public support for manufacturing capacity in lower-income countries to produce their own vaccines.” “That will require Biden to press pharmaceutical companies to transfer technologies.”
