LATEST: MPOX VACCINES ADMINISTERED IN RWANDA, FIRST IN AFRICA
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Mpox vaccinations have been provided in Africa for the first time, with several hundred high-risk persons vaccinated in Rwanda, according to the African Union’s disease control centre on Thursday.
The first 300 doses were provided on Tuesday near the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s border, according to a representative for the African Union’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo has been the most severely hit, with approximately 22,000 cases and over 700 deaths connected to the virus between January and August.
On a conference call with the media, Africa CDC director general Jean Kaseya stated that vaccinations would begin in the DRC in “the first week of October.”.
Mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, is caused by a virus that infects animals and can be spread to people by intimate personal contact.
It can be fatal in some cases, causing fever, muscle pains, and big boil-like sores on the skin.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) prequalified an mpox vaccine, MVA-BN, for the first time last week, making it possible for the United Nations and other international agencies to obtain it.
The Africa CDC reports 29,152 cases and 738 deaths across 15 nations on the continent.
“Mpox is not under control,” said Kaseya.
A CDC spokesperson added that testing remained an issue, with only half of suspected cases tested, and said the agency was aiming for more than 80 percent.
WHO’s chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned in a briefing Thursday that they were not dealing with one outbreak, but “several” in different places, caused by different strains.
In particular, he highlighted the situation in Burundi and the DRC “where cases are continuing to increase”.
According to the WHO prequalification, the vaccine can be administered to people over the age of 18 as a two-dose injection given four weeks apart.
With most mpox cases and deaths in the DRC in children, the WHO stressed the vaccine could be used “off-label” in infants, children and adolescents, as well as in pregnant and immunocompromised people.
“This means vaccine use is recommended in outbreak settings where the benefits of vaccination outweigh the potential risks,” the WHO said in a recent briefing.
The agency also recommends single-dose use in outbreak settings where supplies of the vaccine are constrained. But more data is needed on vaccine safety and effectiveness in such circumstances, it stressed.
The currently available data showed that a single dose of the MVA-BN vaccine given before exposure had an estimated 76-percent effectiveness in protecting against mpox, it said. Two doses were estimated to be 82 percent effective.
AFP
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