Gavi to buy 500,000 mpox vaccine doses to counter outbreak in Africa

London — Global vaccine group Gavi will buy 500,000 doses of Bavarian Nordic’s mpox vaccine, its first purchase of the shot to help battle an outbreak in parts of Africa, the group said on Wednesday.

There have been more than 25,000 suspected mpox cases and 723 deaths in Africa so far this year, mainly in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), which has declared the outbreak a global health emergency.

Gavi, a public-private alliance which co-funds vaccine purchases for low-income countries, said it will spend as much as $50m on the plan, which includes the transport, delivery and costs of administering the vaccines. The doses are due to be delivered this year.

About 3.6-million doses of mpox vaccine have already been pledged to the DRC by developed nations, which have stockpiles, the WHO has said, but only a small portion has arrived so far. The organisation approved the vaccine for use on Friday last week.

Gavi’s purchase, using a facility set up after the Covid-19 pandemic to respond quickly to public health emergencies, could speed up the response in the DRC and other affected countries.

Also on Wednesday, the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria said it would provide $9.5m to support the DRC with its emergency response at the request of the government there, including surveillance, laboratory systems and risk communication.

The price of the vaccine wasn’t disclosed. Gavi’s $50m investment is likely to equate to less than $100 per vaccine because transportation and logistics are included in the total. The figure is lower than previous estimates of the cost.

Gavi CEO Sania Nishtar said the priority is to work with partners “to turn these vaccines into vaccinations as quickly and effectively as possible and to build a global vaccine stockpile”.

The deal will significantly increase the availability of mpox vaccine for African countries, Bavarian Nordic CEO Paul Chaplin said. Last week, the company said it would push back some orders to 2025, based on US government contracts, to focus on market needs now.

Mpox, which spreads through close contact and typically causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions, has been a public health problem in parts of Africa for decades.

Vaccines have previously not been available outside clinical trials in affected countries in Africa, even after a different strain of the virus spread globally in 2022 and high-income countries used vaccines to help stem the outbreak.

Reuters