GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, will purchase 500,000 doses of the Bavarian Nordic vaccine Mpox as part of its efforts to tackle the outbreak in parts of Africa.
In a statement on Wednesday, GAVI said it had entered into an advance purchase agreement to secure vaccines for supply to African countries affected by the Mpox virus outbreak.
According to the group, the vaccine purchase will be financed through GAVI's First Response Fund, a new financial mechanism set up to help secure funding for health emergencies in June.
The global vaccine alliance said Bovarian Nordic will be ready to provide vaccines as soon as arrangements for distribution across Africa have been finalised with the United Nations Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF).
UNICEF, a UN agency working in partnership with GAVI, will be responsible for distributing the vaccines to countries or regions in need.
However, GAVI said doses would be delivered to Africa in 2024.
In this regard, Gavi CEO Sania Nishtar said the group is focused on supporting African leaders to address the spread of infectious diseases in their countries by providing vaccines that would be administered to citizens within a short period of time.
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She said: “We are committed to working with affected governments and our partners to turn these vaccines into vaccines as quickly and efficiently as possible and, over time, create a global vaccine stockpile if sufficient funding is secured for Gavi’s work through 2030.
“We are grateful to our donors for allowing us to act quickly by allocating funds to the First Response Fund before an emergency occurred.”
Ms Nishtar added that the First Response Fund was designed in collaboration with Gavi donors and partners specifically to provide early and rapid financing for emergencies like MPOX.
“Using it today to fund the first direct vaccine transaction in support of equitable access and the global response, just over a month after MPOX was declared a public health emergency, brings us much closer to our goal of protecting those most at risk,” he said.
Vaccine not available in Africa
The recent Mpox outbreak began in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in November 2023 before eventually spreading to several other African countries including Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya.
The Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has recorded more than 26,544 suspected cases and 5,732 confirmed cases in 15 African countries.
In addition, at least 724 deaths have been recorded so far.
Despite the high burden of disease on the continent, the arrival of the vaccine has been slow.
Health experts told Reuters the vaccine has been difficult to obtain for many low-income countries due to its high cost. However, the struggle for access has been compounded by a delay in WHO approval for international agencies to procure and distribute the vaccine to poor countries.
This has forced African governments and the Africa CDC to resort to seeking vaccine donations from richer countries.
So far, only the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria have received doses of the vaccine.
Mpox in Nigeria
Meanwhile, suspected and confirmed cases of Mpox virus have continued to rise in Nigeria.
The recent situation report issued by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) showed that at least 1,031 suspected cases have been recorded in the country.
Additionally, the country has reported 64 confirmed cases of the infectious disease with no fatalities across 47 local government areas in 23 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The NCDC also reported that boys and men are the most affected by the Mpox virus, raising concerns about the susceptibility of young children to the disease.
Of the total 64 confirmed cases recorded in 2024, children under five years of age accounted for the largest number of cases with a total of 15 confirmed cases.
Additionally, 67 percent of Mpox cases reported since January 2024 were in men.