Democratic Republic of Congo, the epicentre of an mpox outbreak, will begin a vaccination campaign on Saturday, three days later than planned.
Jabs were set to be rolled out on Wednesday in DRC but health authorities told AFP this would not be the case.
However Health Minister Samuel-Roger Kamba on Friday confirmed the start date.
“We are launching, from tomorrow, October 5, the vaccination campaign,” Kamba told a press conference in the DRC capital Kinshasa.
Vaccinations will be given in the North Kivu provincial capital Goma in eastern DRC, the region hardest hit by the current epidemic.
The central African country has received 265,000 vaccines doses, which include donations from the United States and European Union.
“It will not be a mass vaccination campaign … the strategy is to vaccinate people most at risk,” said Kamba, adding that the aim was to target people such as those with existing health conditions and health workers.
With the number of vaccine doses DRC currently has “it’s already enough to start in the most affected zones”, he said.
“We are still waiting for more,” the minister added.
Since the start of the year, the country has recorded between 30,000 and 31,000 mpox cases, as well as 988 deaths, according to Kamba.
He said 70 percent of the deaths are of those aged under five, adding that “children are the most affected by the virus”.
The mpox vaccine doses currently held in DRC are manufactured by Danish drugmaker Bavarian Nordic and only intended for adults.
Kinshasa is in talks with Japan, where another mpox vaccine used on adults and children has been approved, for supplies.
Waiting for more vaccines
“We are waiting for the second batch of Bavarian Nordic vaccines that was announced to us by France, of 100,000 doses, to arrive,” said Kamba.
“But we are waiting even more for the three million doses that Japan has promised”, he added.
President Joe Biden said last month that the United States plans to donate one million doses of the mpox vaccine to African nations facing an epidemic.
“We are ready to commit $500 million to help African countries prevent and respond to mpox and to donate one million doses of mpox vaccine, now,” he told the UN General Assembly in New York.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said Friday it had approved the use of the first diagnostic test for mpox.
The test, allows for the detection of the virus from swabs taken from human lesions.
“The WHO actually announced a total of around 4,500 tests (for DRC),” Kamba said.
He did not add the date they would arrive.
Scientists discovered the disease, formerly called monkeypox, in 1958 in Denmark among monkeys kept for research.
It was first spotted it in humans in 1970 in what is now DRC.
Mpox has been detected in 16 African countries this year so far, according to the African Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
The virus gained international prominence in May 2022, when clade 2b spread around the world, mostly affecting gay and bisexual men.
In July 2022, the World Health Organization declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, its highest level of alarm.
