The World Health Organization (WHO) announced today that its partners such as the GAVI Vaccine Alliance and UNICEF can start buying vaccines against mpox (mpox, the former name for monkeypox) even before they are approved.
Organizations that help poorer countries get vaccines can only start buying them once the WHO approves them.
However, in this case, the measures were relaxed so that the vaccines could reach Africa as soon as possible, where the smallpox epidemic broke out, and approval by the WHO can take several weeks.
Vaccines from the Danish company "Bavarian Nordic" and the Japanese "KM Biologics" have already been approved and are in widespread use from 2022. In the US alone, 1,2 million people received the smallpox vaccine, Reuters reports.
The WHO is expected to issue an emergency license for the vaccines in September.
Mumps is a viral infection that spreads through close contact and is usually mild but fatal.
Last Sunday, the WHO declared the spread of smallpox in the Congo and elsewhere on the African continent as a global threat.
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