In an immediate response to the Mpox (monkeypox) epidemic in Africa, the European Commission’s Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA) announced on 14 August that it would purchase and donate 175,420 doses of MVA-BN ®, the only Mpox vaccine approved by both the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
In addition, the pharmaceutical company Bavarian Nordic will donate 40,000 doses to HERA.
The vaccines will be distributed by the African Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC Africa), according to regional needs. HERA is also working with CDC Africa to expand access to Mpox diagnostics and sequencing on the continent. Aid of €3.5 million has been earmarked for this purpose.
MVA-BN is the only Mpox vaccine approved in the EU/EEA and the UK.
Bavarian Nordic also announced on Wednesday 21 August (https://aeur.eu/f/d7b ) that it had signed a contract to supply 440,000 doses of its Mpox vaccine to an “undisclosed European country”.
“The world already knows a lot about Mpox, so it cannot be considered as the new Covid”, reassured Hans Kluge, Regional Director for Europe of the World Health Organization (WHO), on 20 August.
On 22 August, Thailand confirmed that the case of Mpox detected on its territory in a traveller from Africa originated from the African strain responsible for the current epidemic. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)