On Thursday 14 November, the European Commission announced that it had coordinated and financed the delivery and transport of 122,300 doses of vaccine donated by Belgium, Germany and Portugal to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) to combat the Mpox epidemic.
An initial shipment of 100,000 doses donated by Germany is due to arrive in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on 14 November.
This delivery is part of the commitment by the EU and its Member States to donate 580,000 doses of Mpox vaccine to Africa CDC (more than 205,000 doses have already been donated (see EUROPE 13466/4). Further shipments from other EU Member States are expected in the coming weeks. The donated vaccines will be transported by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), on the basis of a partnership with the European Commission (see EUROPE 13476/5).
Since July 2024, in addition to delivering vaccines, the Commission has provided €1.5 million in humanitarian aid to help the DRC, Burundi and Uganda cope with the epidemic.
In addition, the EU has deployed four epidemiologists from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) to the DRC, the epicentre of this epidemic in the African region. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)