
“We need to receive 3 million doses of vaccine against the mpox virus to vaccinate 2.5 million people in the most affected areas,” said DRC Health Minister Samuel Roger Kamba during a briefing on the government’s measures to combat mpox (new name for monkeypox). “We believe this amount of vaccine is enough to stop the spread of the disease.”
The minister said the Democratic Republic of the Congo was counting on international aid to buy the vaccine.
“These vaccines are very expensive,” he said. “We are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars. It is important for the international community to wake up and join the effort to fight MPOX by providing us with the necessary resources to buy the vaccine.”
Last summer, the DRC government approved the use of two newer mpox vaccines that have been developed in recent years. The vaccines have also been approved by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Kamba said that since the beginning of 2024, 15,664 mpox cases and 548 deaths have been reported in the DRC. Infected mpox cases have been identified in all 26 provinces of the country.
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