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The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said Mpox cases were showing a 500% increase from last year, now impacting 19 countries.
The World Health Organization said almost a million doses of Mpox vaccines have been allocated to nine countries in Africa.
This follows the establishment last month of an Access and Allocation Mechanism (AAM) to support equitable and timely access to Mpox vaccines in Africa. WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that so far, more than 50,000 people have been vaccinated against Mpox in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, thanks to donations from the United States and the European Commission.
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said Mpox cases were showing a 500% increase from last year, now impacting 19 countries. The WHO declared Mpox a global health emergency in mid-August, after a new strain, clade 1b, began spreading from the Democratic Republic of Congo to neighboring countries.
Ghebreyesus said this week that the allocation of some 900,000 doses of vaccine was based on public health needs, especially those with significant transmission of the new variant. This was the first allocation of almost six million vaccine doses that we expect to be available by the end of 2024.
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Vaccination is only one part of the plan. The WHO is also engaged in case finding, contact tracing, infection prevention and control, clinical care, risk communication, and testing as part of the effort to address the burgeoning growth of Mpox.
