Gavi boosts Africa's Mpox defense with 500,000 doses of newly approved vaccine
Kenya has confirmed five cases one each in Taita Taveta, Busia, Nairobi, Mombasa and Nakuru.
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, will purchase 500,000 doses of MVA-BN, the Bavarian Nordic Mpox vaccine, as part of an international effort to combat the outbreak of Mpox in certain parts of Africa.
The purchase is being facilitated by Gavi's First Response Fund, a financial mechanism designed to provide rapid funding for the procurement of vaccines during public health emergencies.
The Alliance has announced that the doses will be delivered to affected countries in the region later this year.
Last week, the World Health Organisation (WHO) approved the MVA-BN vaccine, marking the first pre-qualification of an Mpox vaccine and streamlining the procurement process for international organisations.
"We are committed to working with affected governments and our partners to deploy these vaccines quickly and effectively, and ultimately to build a global stockpile if sufficient funding is secured for Gavi's work through 2030. We are grateful to our donors for enabling us to respond quickly by committing funds to the First Response Fund before an emergency occurs," said Dr Sania Nishtar, CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.
In June, the organisation established a $500 million First Response Fund to provide immediate funding for vaccines in health emergencies.
The doses secured through this agreement will significantly increase the availability of Mpox vaccines for African countries, and we are pleased that Gavi has selected our MVA-BN vaccine, which proved highly effective during the global Mpox outbreak in 2022," said Paul Chaplin, President and CEO of Bavarian Nordic.
Meanwhile, the African Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has called for the continent to receive 10 million doses, but so far only 3.6 million vaccines have been secured for Africa.
Africa has reported more than 25,000 suspected cases of Mpox and 723 deaths, mostly in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Between January to August, the DRC recorded nearly 22,000 cases and more than 700 deaths linked to the virus.
Kenya and five other African countries have received a total of 50,000 doses of the ACAM2000 vaccine from Emergent BioSolutions through the humanitarian organisation Direct Relief, in partnership with the WHO and the US government.
As part of the country's preparedness and response plan, the Ministry of Health has allocated more than Sh6.7 billion to deal with the virus in Kenya. Five confirmed cases have been reported in Taita Taveta, Busia, Nairobi, Mombasa, and Nakuru counties.
As part of the response to contain the outbreak and prevent new cases, Cabinet Secretary for Health Debora Barasa said the ministry had intensified surveillance activities across the country, activated public health emergency operation centres, and established incident management teams.
At the county level, about 25 Mpox facilities for emergency operations have been set up, and public health professionals working under county rapid response teams have been tasked with conducting thorough contact tracing of suspected Mpox cases.
"Surveillance has been intensified throughout the country and at points of entry. More than 300,000 travellers have been screened," said CS Barasa.
The WHO declared an international emergency over Mpox last month, expressing concern about the surge in cases of the new clade 1b strain in DRC, which has spread to neighbouring countries.
