A shipment of 11, 200 doses of Mpox vaccine, donated by the United States of America and facilitated by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance will arrive in Abuja, today.
This follows agreements signed in November by Gavi to facilitate the donation of 305, 000 doses of Mpox vaccine to support the global and continental response. This was disclosed on Gavi’s website on Friday.
It said the vaccines will be delivered to countries affected by the upsurge of Mpox that continues to constitute a public health emergency of international concern.
“On 24 September, the US announced its intention to donate up to one million doses to support the Mpox emergency and began discussions to donate the first 305,000 of those through Gavi.
“The doses manufactured by Bavarian Nordic have been allocated to affected countries through the Access and Allocation Mechanism for Mpox, led by the Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, Gavi, UNICEF and the World Health Organisation (WHO),” the statement said.
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Commenting on the agreement, Dr Sania Nishtar, the chief executive of Gavi, said that “we thank the US for these donations, which substantially strengthen the global Mpox response. In addition to the 500,000 doses that Gavi procured directly in September through our first response fund, working with our donors, we now have legal frameworks in place to facilitate a substantial volume of additional pledged doses, which we will work with our partners to ensure are rolled out as quickly as possible.”
The statement also noted that Gavi will also use the first response fund to cover the delivery costs of the doses it procures or facilitates. The funding was established this year in response to key lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The donation through Gavi builds on the U.S. government’s commitment to providing over a million Mpox vaccines to international communities dealing with the current mpox outbreak,” said Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, Dawn O’Connell.
In August, Nigeria received 10,000 doses of Mpox vaccines donated by the USA, becoming the first country in Africa to receive doses to respond to the Mpox outbreak.
