Congo hopes to receive first mpox vaccines by next week
The Democratic Republic of the Congo hopes to receive its first doses of an mpox vaccine by next week, following promises from Japan and the United States to help it fight its outbreak, the Congolese health minister said on Monday (August 19). - REUTERS
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00:00The Democratic Republic of the Congo hopes to receive its first doses of an Mpox vaccine
00:06next week, following promises from Japan and the United States to help fight its outbreak.
00:13That's according to Congolese Health Minister Samuel Roger Kamba Malamba on Monday.
00:18SAMUEL ROGER KAMBA MALAMBA, Congolese Health Minister
00:22I hope that the vaccines will arrive next week. You know, it's really a whole logistics
00:26chain, from our acceptance first, and then a few administrative procedures before shipment.
00:35But our strategic vaccination response plan is already ready. We're just waiting for the
00:39vaccines to arrive.
00:43Earlier on Monday, Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare said in an email statement
00:48to Reuters that it was preparing to provide Congo with Mpox vaccines and needles in cooperation
00:55with the World Health Organization and other partners.
00:58Their arrival would help address a huge inequity that left African countries with no access
01:04to the two shots used in a 2022 outbreak, while the vaccines were widely available in
01:09Europe and the U.S.
01:11Global vaccine group Gavi said last week it had up to $500 million to spend on getting
01:18shots to impacted countries.
01:20The DRC's health minister said, quote, Gavi has offered to make the vaccines available
01:25and we agreed.
01:27The World Health Organization declared Mpox a global public health emergency last week
01:32for the second time in two years, as new variant clade 1B spread rapidly in Africa.
01:39The DRC has 16,700 recorded cases and over 570 deaths, the health minister said.