The Democratic Republic of Congo, the epicenter of a smallpox outbreak, received its first vaccines on Thursday.
This initial batch of vaccines, almost half of 200,000 doses, was donated by the European Union and is expected to arrive by the end of the week to help combat the spread of the disease.
Laurent Muschel, the head of the EU’s Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA), stated, “The vaccines have arrived in the DRC.
They are now on their way to storage areas, and the vaccination campaign should begin at the end of the month,” to AFP.
Congolese Health Minister Samuel-Roger Kamba and Muschel were present at Kinshasa airport when the plane carrying 99,100 vaccine doses landed, as reported by an AFP journalist.
The doses left the Danish capital, Copenhagen, on Wednesday evening.
The DRC has recorded more than 19,000 cases and over 650 deaths, according to the latest figures from the health minister.
Smallpox is caused by a virus transmitted to humans by infected animals but can also be passed from human to human through close physical contact. It can be deadly and cause symptoms such as fever, muscular aches, and large boil-like skin lesions.
“It shows the solidarity between the European Union with Africa and also our capacity to react quickly,” Muschel said.
The remainder of the 200,000 doses donated by the EU are set to arrive in Kinshasa on Saturday.
The World Health Organization declared an international emergency on August 14, concerned by the surge in cases of the new Clade 1b strain in the DRC that spread to nearby countries.
Muschel said 560,000 doses will be given by the EU and some of its member states to the DRC and other affected countries.
Mpox is now present in 13 African countries, including Burundi, Congo-Brazzaville and the Central African Republic, according to the Africa CDC.
The vaccines arriving in the DRC this week come from the Danish pharmaceutical laboratory Bavarian Nordic.
It is the only vaccine approved in Europe and the United States and is only intended for adults.
