The shipment of vaccines comes three weeks after the World Health Organization declared the outbreak in 12 African countries a global emergency.
The European Union, through its health emergencies agency HERA, has donated 100,000 doses of the MVA-BN vaccine, manufactured by the Danish company Bavarian Nordic, donated by the European Union.
Another 100,000 doses are expected to be delivered on Saturday, according to Congolese authorities.
UNICEF is set to be responsible for the vaccination campaign in most of the affected areas, Congo’s health minister Roger Kamba told reporters after receiving the vaccine. But it is still unclear when actual vaccinations will begin.
Western partners, such as the European Union and the United States, have promised about 380,000 doses of the vaccine, the head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Jean Kasia, told reporters last week.
That represents less than 15 percent of the 3 million doses that authorities said were needed to stem the outbreak in Congo, the epicenter of the global emergency.
Monkeypox had been circulating mostly undiagnosed in Africa for years, but the disease has spread to more than 70 countries in 2022, the head of the World Health Organization’s monkeypox emergency committee, Demi Ogwenya, said last month.
Monkeypox is an infectious disease caused by a virus that is transmitted to humans from infected animals, but can also be transmitted between humans through close physical contact. It causes fever, muscle aches, rashes, and sores.
