Mpox: DRC hopes to receive first doses of vaccines next week

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) hopes to receive the first doses of vaccines against the MPOX epidemic next week, in this country where the disease has already caused at least 570 deaths, declared, Monday, August 19, the Minister of Health Samuel-Roger Kamba. “We are talking about a continental emergency”he said at a press conference. The worst-affected country, the DRC, has recorded 16,700 cases “with just over 570 people dead” since the beginning of the year, he said: “We have two countries basically that have promised us vaccines. The first country is Japan. And the second country is the United States of America.”,

The United States has promised 50,000 doses, while the “Japan signed this morning [lundi] with the authorities for 3.5 million doses, only for children”explained a response cell official on condition of anonymity. A country of around one hundred million inhabitants, the DRC “plans to vaccinate 4 million people including 3.5 million children”added this source.

“I hope that next week we could already see the vaccines arriving (…) Our strategic plan for the response to vaccination is already ready, we are just waiting for the vaccines to arrive”the minister insisted, because the disease “affects more and more young people. Many children under 15 are affected.”

The resigning Prime Minister Gabriel Attal also announced on Monday, “as requested by the President of the Republic, the donation of 100,000 doses of vaccines which will be distributed via the European Union to regions where the virus is circulating strongly”, indicating that these donations should “reinforce the current European effort by almost 50%”.

Maximum alert level

The epidemic is characterized by a more contagious and dangerous virus, with an estimated mortality rate of 3.6%.

The resurgence of MPOX in the DRC, which also affects Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, prompted the pan-African public health agency, the Africa CDC, to trigger its highest level of continental alert on August 13, followed the next day by the World Health Organization (WHO) with a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) after the discovery of a case in Sweden, then in Pakistan and the Philippines.

On Monday, WHO released updated guidelines on how to combat the outbreak, including “flexible adaptation of vaccination strategies and plans to the areas concerned”The UN agency called on countries to “intensify their efforts to thoroughly investigate smallpox cases and outbreaks” in order to understand its transmission and prevent its spread “to family members and communities”.

WHO adds that countries should be prepared to provide food and other support to smallpox patients “including, where justified and possible, isolation in care facilities” because MPOX is more lethal on malnourished and dehydrated organisms, as well as on immunocompromised people, such as HIV carriers for example.

“Cross-border collaboration”

There “cross-border collaboration” between the DRC and its neighbors, where several cases have been detected in recent weeks to monitor and treat suspected cases “without resorting to blanket restrictions on travel and trade that would have an unnecessary impact on economies” must also be strengthened, the WHO said. The head of the WHO's European office, Hans Kluge, also made a point of clarifying on Tuesday, insisting that “MPOX is not the new Covid”.

The DRC is the focus and epicentre of the current outbreak, with growing concern over the spread of a more dangerous strain of the virus in Central Africa and beyond. Formerly known as monkeypox, the virus was first discovered in 1958 in Denmark, in monkeys bred for research. Then in 1970 for the first time in humans – a 9-month-old baby, in the former Zaire (now DRC).

Originally, mpox is a zoonosis, that is, a viral disease that spreads from animals to humans but is also transmitted through close physical contact between humans. However, transmission of the new strain, clade 2b, is now almost exclusively from human to human through sexual intercourse and skin contact with sick people or infected surfaces. The disease causes fever, muscle pain and skin lesions.

The Congolese Minister of Health, however, asked the population to “Do not eat meat from dead animals, do not touch sick animals, because this is also a way of getting contaminated”.