According to the country’s Ministry of Health, the first vaccination campaign will be small in scope, due to limited resources.
19:55•Updated 19:57
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, health authorities have started the first vaccination campaign against m-pox on Saturday. Measles was formerly known as monkeypox.
This is a key step in the efforts to curb the m-pox epidemic, which has spread from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to 13 other African countries this year.
African countries have previously had no access to vaccines that have been widely available in Europe and the United States since monkeypox spread globally in 2022.
The start of the vaccinations was celebrated on Saturday in the city of Goma in the eastern part of the Congo, where the first vaccine doses were also given.
However, the country’s Ministry of Health has warned that the first vaccination campaign will be small in scope, due to limited resources. There are currently 265,000 vaccine doses available, but more are promised to come.
According to WHO data, at least 32,800 cases of smallpox have been confirmed in Africa since the beginning of the year, as well as 844 deaths related to the disease.
In August, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared m-pox a global health emergency.
Source: Reuters, AFP