Officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have begun vaccinating against mpox, nearly two months after the disease, which spread to several countries, was declared a global emergency by the World Health Organization.
Some of the 265,000 doses donated to the DRC by the European Union and the United States were administered in the eastern city of Goma in North Kivu province, where hospitals and health workers are overstretched, struggling to contain a new and potentially highly infectious mpox strain.
DRC, with about 30,000 suspected mpox cases and 859 deaths, accounts for more than 80% of all cases and 99% of all deaths reported in Africa this year. All 26 provinces of the central African country have reported mpox cases.
Although most mpox infections and deaths recorded in the DRC are among children under 15, the doses administered are limited to adults and will be given to at-risk populations and frontline workers, Health Minister Roger Gamba said this week.
“Strategies have been put in place by the services to vaccinate all targeted personnel,” said the minister’s chief of staff Muboyai Chikyal, who launched the vaccination.
Kamba said at least 3 million doses of the vaccine approved for use in children are expected to arrive from Japan in the coming days.
