At an Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) briefing today, Director-General Jean Kaseya, MD, MPH, said new developments to pave the way for vaccine procurement are raising hopes, including the possibility of manufacturing doses in Africa.
A deal on technology transfer and local manufacturing would help lower the price without compromising on quality, he said.
In the wake of public health emergency declarations from Africa CDC and the World Health Organization (WHO) last week, Bavarian Nordic, which makes the Jynneos vaccine, said in an August 17 statement that it is working closely with stakeholders to ensure equitable access.
"Importantly, we have built a strong partnership with the Africa CDC, both on supply, but also expanding our manufacturing network to include Africa," the company said, adding that it is working on a regulatory path with the WHO to ensure access to all countries, is seeking approval for use of the vaccine in adolescents, and is conducting clinical trials in Africa aimed at expanding use to children.
Yesterday at a briefing, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) Health Minister Samuel Roger Kamba Mulamba, MD, said Japan and the United States have pledged doses, the first of which could arrive as soon as next week, according to Reuters. The DRC is the hardest-hit African nation.
Emergent announces ACAM2000 donation
In other vaccine developments Emergent BioSolutions yesterday announced that it would donate 50,000 doses of its ACAM2000 vaccine to Direct Relief, a humanitarian organization that has worked in the DRC and other affected countries.
In October 2023 the company filed an application with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to include use of the vaccine against mpox. The company has also responded to a WHO invitation for companies to submit interest for emergency use listing.
ACAM200 is a live replicating vaccina virus vaccine that is given by the percutaneous scarification route as one dose, with boosters every 3 years. The vaccine is stockpiled as a smallpox countermeasure in the United States and other countries.
Japan donation could pave way for immunizing children
Children have been hit hard in the DRC, the outbreak's epicenter. UNICEF estimates that 8,772 children have contracted mpox in the DRC since the first of the year and make up more than half of the country's cases. The group also said 463 of 548 mpox death in the DRC involved children.
The vaccine donation from Japan could give the country a leg up on immunizing children. Its stockpiled vaccine, called LC16m8, was used in Japan in 1974 to vaccinate 50,000 children between ages 2 and 5 years old, according to WHO background materials on currently available mpox vaccine.
LC16m8 is a single-dose live replicating attenuated vaccine that is administered by dermal scarification.
Burundi cases spike; suspected cases in more nations
At today's Africa CDC briefing, Kaseya said about 1,400 mpox cases have been reported across the African region over the past week. He added that 27 new cases, 11 of them lab-confirmed, were recorded in the past 24 hours.
Burundi is one of the DRC's neighboring countries that is reporting mpox cases for the first time.
In related developments, South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa, who leads pandemic preparedness activities for the African Union, in an August 17 statement, commended groups for their decisive actions and called on countries in the region to allocate more domestic funds for response activities.
He said he is deeply concerned about the rapid spread of mpox in Africa, with nearly 18,000 cases, including 517 deaths, across 13 countries reported since the first of the year, up 160% compared to the same period in 2023.
Ramaphosa said 3 more countries have reported suspected cases and, if confirmed, would bring the number of affected countries to 16.
