Collaboration with governments

The Gavi Alliance announced on Wednesday that it had reached an agreement with Bavarian Nordic, a Danish pharmaceutical manufacturer, to acquire 500,000 doses of the mpox vaccine for use in African countries currently experiencing an outbreak of the virus.

This announcement follows the World Health Organization’s approval of the MVA-BN vaccine last week, paving the way for the United States and other international agencies to purchase it. Additionally, the Global Fund, a partnership established in 2002 to fight AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, has committed $9.5 million to combat pox in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the epicenter of the current outbreak.

Gavi announced that the vaccine doses, expected to be delivered by the end of the year, will be purchased through its newly established Pandemic Vaccine Pool, created in June to allocate funds for vaccines in case of medical emergencies quickly. We are committed to working with the relevant governments and our partners to efficiently deploy these vaccines, said Gavi’s CEO, Sania Nishtar, in a statement. Indian Ocean countries, including the Seychelles, Mauritius, and Madagascar, will receive vaccines as a preventive measure.

Building a global vaccine stockpile was a stated goal, though it depends on Gavi’s ability to secure sufficient funding for its activities through 2030. The virus that causes mpox is typically transmitted to humans through contact with infected animals but can also spread from person to person through close physical contact. Last month, the WHO declared an international health emergency for mpox due to the recurrence of cases from the newly discovered Clade 1b strain in the DRC, which has spread to neighboring countries.