The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) on Thursday said the African continent is set to receive its first batch of mpox vaccines as a donation from South Korea, reported The Africa News. The donation was announced on Nov 29 on the sidelines of a Global Health Security Agenda health minister’s meeting in Seoul.
In a statement, the acting Africa CDC Director Ahmed Ogwell welcomed the collaboration with South Korea.
“We appreciate this gesture and assure that these Mpox vaccines will be prioritised in the most affected African Union Member States,” the Africa CDC director said.
The 50,000 doses will be first given to health workers and people living in the hardest-hit areas. The African health body, however, did not give any timing for the doses’ arrival.
There have been 202 deaths recorded from mpox in African countries with a death rate of 19.3 percent across 13 countries.
Notably, Mpox has been endemic in a number of African countries for decades. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared it a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) in August 2022.
On Monday, the WHO announced that it would start using mpox as the preferred term for what had been known as monkeypox, to avoid racism and stigmatisation stemming from the existing name.
In the last months, the United Nations has also criticised news coverage about the disease. The global body warned that poor reporting can “reinforce homophobic and racist stereotypes and exacerbate stigma”.
In June, WHO Africa Director Matshidiso Moeti had said the UN health body was in the process of procuring thousands of mpox tests for Africa but was not recommending mass vaccination at the current stage.
According to the Africa CDC Director, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) reported 51 new mpox cases in the past week and said Ghana and Nigeria are the other most affected countries in Africa.
