DR Congo expects first shipment of mpox vaccines to arrive on Thursday
Al Jazeera
The country hopes to start vaccinations in October but faces huge logistical challenges as doses need to be kept cold.
The first shipment of nearly 100,000 doses of mpox vaccines is expected to arrive in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on Thursday.
The Central African country of about 100 million people is at the epicentre of an mpox outbreak that the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global public health emergency last month.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus confirmed the doses, manufactured by Bavarian Nordic and donated by the European Union, were due to arrive on Thursday.
Cris Kacita, head of DRC’s mpox outbreak response chief, earlier told the Reuters news agency about the planned shipments.
“We’ll receive the first batch on Sept 5 and a second one on Sept 7,” Kacita said in a WhatsApp message, without giving further details on the number of doses or the provider.
