Bavarian Nordic can provide 10 million doses of its mpox vaccine to African countries by the end of 2025 to help them deal with the latest global public health emergency, the vaccine manufacturer’s CEO said.
“We have inventory and we have the capabilities. What we’re missing are the orders,” Paul Chaplin told Bloomberg.
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has said it needs 10 million doses to control the outbreak, which has spread from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to neighboring countries in recent weeks.
The Danish drugmaker and the European Commission have already donated more than 200,000 doses. Chaplin said the company has 300,000 doses ready for shipping immediately and could provide 2 million doses to Africa by the end of this year.
“We are in late August already, so it really does need some speed in the decision making to be able to do that,” he said.
Stockpiles of the vaccine are also held in other places, in preparation for future outbreaks. The European Union signed a contract for 2 million doses in November 2022 , while some countries in Europe also hold national stockpiles. The U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) this month issued an order to Bavarian Nordic to replenish its stocks of the vaccine.
The World Health Organization declared the mpox outbreak in Africa a public health emergency of international concern on Aug. 14. A more deadly strain of the virus, spreading among children and via sexual contact, is of particular concern, WHO officials said.
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