NEED-National Institutes of Health
Artificially colored micrograph showing the Mpox virus.
WHO announcement: “Important step” in fight against disease in Africa and elsewhere.
Global Health Organization (from) Today it announced that it has been awarded First license To use a Serum against mpox in Adults, Considering it an “important step” in combating the disease in Africa and other regions.
The vaccine’s prequalification by Bavarian Nordic A/S – a Danish biotech company dedicated to developing, manufacturing and marketing vaccines – means donors such as GAVI (the Vaccine Alliance) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) can buy it. But supplies are limited because there is only one manufacturer.
This is the first pre-test of a vaccine against monkeypox. [mpox] He is a Important step “In our fight against the disease, both in the context of current outbreaks in Africa and in the future,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.
The Director-General of the United Nations Health Organization called for “Urgent” increase. By procuring, donating and distributing the vaccine so that it reaches where it is most needed, along with other response measures.
According to the WHO license, the vaccine can be given to people aged 18 years and older in a two-dose regimen. The approval says that while the vaccine is not currently licensed for people under 18 years of age, it can be used in infants, children and adolescents “in outbreak settings where the benefits of vaccination outweigh the potential risks.”
About 70% of cases are in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, authorities at the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC Africa) said last month. (Democratic Republic of the Congo) – The country most affected by smallpox – affects children under 15 years of age, who were also responsible for 85% of deaths.
On Thursday, the Africa CDC said 107 new deaths and 3,160 new cases were recorded last week, just a week after the African Union public health agency, in collaboration with the World Health Organization, launched a continental response plan.
The Africa CDC has declared smallpox a “Continental Public Health EmergencyOn August 13, a day later, the World Health Organization issued an international health alert about the disease.
Africa The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday recorded 26,543 cases of smallpox (5,731 confirmed cases) and 724 deaths from the disease, formerly known as monkeypox, since the beginning of the year.
According to figures shared by the agency's Director-General, Jean Cassia, deaths and infections reported since January represent 43% and 56%, respectively, of the total recorded since January 2022 to the present.
The WHO alert is linked to: Rapid spread and high mortality rate In Africa, the new variant (subtype clade 1b), the first case of which was identified outside the continent, appeared in Sweden, in a person who had traveled to an area of Africa where the virus is circulating intensively.
This variant is different from subtype 2, which is responsible for an outbreak of violence in Africa in 2022, as well as hundreds of cases in Europe, North America and countries in other parts of the world, and has already led to the declaration of an international health emergency between 2022 and 2023.
Chickenpox belongs to the same family of viruses as smallpox, but causes milder symptoms such as fever, chills, and body aches. People with more severe cases may develop lesions on the face, hands, chest, and genitals.
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