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This first delivery is equivalent to 99,000 doses. (representative)
Kinshasa:
The Democratic Republic of Congo received its first batch of the Mpox vaccine on Thursday, which health officials hope will help curb an outbreak that has prompted the United Nations to declare a global public health emergency. what is
Congo is the epicenter of the outbreak, which has spread to neighboring countries and elsewhere, but a lack of vaccines in Africa has sometimes hampered efforts to stop the spread of the deadly disease.
A plane carrying food produced by Bavarian Nordic and donated by the European Union landed in the capital Kinshasa at around 13:00 local time (12:00 GMT), Reuters reporters at the airport said. .
Congolese Health Minister Samuel Roger Kumba-Mulamba told reporters that the new vaccine has already proven its worth in the United States and will be rolled out to adults in Congo.
“We know which provinces have been hit the hardest, especially Equateur and South Kivu… The idea is to get the virus under control as quickly as possible,” he added.
Laurent Mitchell, head of the EU Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA), said the first delivery was 99,000 doses and further deliveries on Saturday would bring the total to 200,000 doses.
In total, Europe aims to deliver 566,000 doses to areas most in need in the region, Michel told Reuters. “Based on the number of cases, the next country (for delivery) should be Burundi, but the country’s medical agency should allow it.”
The arrival of the vaccine in Congo should begin to address a huge inequity that has left African countries without access to the two shots used in the 2022 global Mepox outbreak, while Europe and the US I was widely available.
Congo has said it will begin its vaccination campaign on October 8 to allow time for a thorough awareness campaign to overcome mistrust in some communities.
Mpox usually causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled sores, and can kill. According to the Ministry of Health, 19,710 suspected cases of MPox were reported in the Congo in the first eight months of this year. Of these, 5,041 were confirmed and 655 were fatal.
It is spread through close contact, including sexual contact.
(Other than the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
