Democratic Republic of Congo begins mpox vaccinations after emergency declared

Authorities in Democratic Republic of the Congo on Saturday began vaccinating against mpox, nearly two months after the disease outbreak that spread to several African countries and beyond was declared a global emergency by the World Health Organisation.

The 265,000 doses donated to by the European Union and the US were rolled out in the eastern city of Goma in North Kivu province, where hospitals and health workers have been overstretched, struggling to contain the new and possibly more infectious strain of mpox.

Democratic Republic of the Congo, with about 30,000 suspected mpox cases and 859 deaths, accounts for more than 80% of all the cases and 99% of all the deaths reported in Africa this year.

All of the country’s 26 provinces have recorded mpox cases.

Although most mpox infections and deaths recorded are in children under the age of 15, the doses being administered are only meant for adults and will be given to at-risk populations and frontline workers, health minister Roger Kamba said this week.

“Strategies have been put in place by the services in order to vaccinate all targeted personnel,” Muboyayi ChikayaI, the minister’s chief of staff, said as he kicked off the vaccination.

At least three million doses of the vaccine approved for use in children are expected from Japan in the coming days, Mr Kamba said.

Mpox, also known as monkeypox, had been spreading mostly undetected for years in Africa before the disease prompted the 2022 global outbreak, when wealthy countries quickly responded with vaccines from their stockpiles and Africa received only a few doses despite pleas from its governments.

However, unlike the global outbreak in 2022 that was overwhelmingly focused in gay and bisexual men, mpox in Africa is now being spread via sexual transmission as well as through close contact among children, pregnant women and other vulnerable groups, Dr Dimie Ogoina, chairman of WHO’s mpox emergency committee, recently said.

More than 34,000 suspected cases and 866 deaths from the virus have been recorded across 16 countries in Africa this year.

That is a 200% increase compared with the same period last year, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said.

But access to vaccines remains a challenge.

The continent of 1.4 billion people has only secured commitment for 5.9 million doses of mpox vaccines, expected to be available from October until December, Dr Jean Kaseya, head of the Africa CDC, told reporters last week.

At the vaccination drive in Goma, Dr Jean Bruno Kibunda, the WHO representative, warned that North Kivu province is at a risk of a major outbreak because of the “promiscuity observed in the camps” for displaced people, as one of the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis caused by armed violence unfolds there.

The news of the vaccination programme brought relief to many, especially in hospitals that had been struggling to manage the outbreak.

“If everyone could be vaccinated, it would be even better to stop the spread of the disease,” said Dr Musole Mulambamunva Robert, the medical director of Kavumu Hospital, one of the mpox treatment centres.

The country has been beset by conflict for years, with more than 100 armed groups vying for a foothold in the mineral-rich area near the border with Rwanda. Some have been accused of carrying out mass killings.