WHO says partners can start talks to buy mpox vaccines before their approval

LONDON: The World Health Organisation said on Friday its partners like Gavi and UNICEF can start buying mpox vaccines before they are approved in a bid to get inoculations to Africa faster as the continent battles an escalating outbreak of the virus, Reuters reported.

Traditionally, organisations like Gavi, the vaccine alliance, which helps lower-income countries buy vaccines; and UNICEF, the UN agency responsible for providing humanitarian and developmental aid to children worldwide, can only start purchasing shots once they have approval from the WHO. But the rules have been relaxed in this instance to get talks moving, as the WHO’s approval is due in a few weeks.

hailand has detected an mpox case in a European man who arrived from Africa last week and is awaiting test results to determine the strain, agencies reported, citing a disease control official on Wednesday.

Thai authorities were treating the case as if it were the Clade 1 form of mpox, as the person, a 66-year-old European man with residency in Thailand had arrived on 14th August from an African country where it was spreading, Thongchai Keeratihattayakorn, Director-General of the Department of Disease Control.

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Two vaccines, made by Denmark’s Bavarian Nordic and Japan’s KM Biologics, are already approved by regulators around the world, including the United States and Japan, and have been in widespread use for mpox since 2022. Around 1.2 million people have had Bavarian Nordic’s vaccine in the United States alone. The WHO is expected to grant an emergency licence to the shots in September.