The European Union will donate more than 210,000 doses of vaccines to tackle the monkeypox outbreak in Africa

As monkeypox becomes a "public health Emergency of international concern", the European Union has announced that it will donate more than 210,000 doses of vaccine to the African Centers for Disease Control in response to the ongoing monkeypox outbreak there.

According to a European Commission announcement released on Wednesday (August 14), the EU donated a total of 215,420 doses of the MVA-BN smallpox vaccine produced by the Danish pharmaceutical company Bavarian Nordic, of which 175,420 doses were purchased by the EU and the remaining 40,000 doses were donated by Bavarian Nordic.

Monkeypox, a zoonotic viral disease, belongs to the same genus orthopoxvirus as smallpox, and vaccination against smallpox can help prevent monkeypox, China News Service reported. The MVA-BN smallpox vaccine is currently approved in the European Union for the prevention of monkeypox.

In addition to donating vaccines, the EU also plans to donate 3.5 million euros to the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this fall to help the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to increase monkeypox testing and genetic sequencing of the virus.

The European Commission Commissioner for Health and food safety, Kyriakidis, said in the announcement that health security threats know no borders and that by donating more than 210,000 doses of vaccines, we hope to protect the most vulnerable groups in African countries affected by monkeyzella.

As the monkeypox epidemic continues to spread, the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared the monkeypox epidemic a public health emergency in Africa on August 13. According to the African Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the current outbreak has affected at least 16 countries in Africa, and the number of reported cases has increased significantly compared with the same period last year.

In 1970, the world's first human case of monkeypox virus was found in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a central African country, and the clinical manifestations were mainly fever, rash, and lymph node enlargement. The fatality rate is low and most people recover within a few weeks.

In the past, monkeypox outbreaks were more common in central and West Africa, but after May 2022, monkeypox outbreaks once broke out globally, leading the World Health Organization to declare monkeypox outbreaks as a public health emergency of international concern in July of that year, and the status was lifted by May 2023, according to the World Health Organization, the epidemic has affected more than 110 countries and regions around the world. More than 87,000 cases of monkeypox have been reported, with 140 deaths.