Congo to get Japan's mpox vaccine for children from next week, Africa CDC says

Dakar: Democratic Republic of Congo should start to receive three million doses of mpox vaccine from Japan next week that can be used on children, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said on Thursday.

Vaccinations against the potentially deadly infection are under way in Congo, the epicentre of the outbreak, but there have been no shots available for children, who are particularly vulnerable to mpox.

Japan pledged in September to donate doses from its national stockpile of LC16m8 vaccines, first developed by local firm KM Biologics for smallpox and effective against mpox.

But the donation was held up by a legal hurdle.

"The good news we got from Japan is that, next week, we are getting the Japanese vaccine in DRC that will allow the vaccination of children," Jean Kaseya, director general of Africa CDC, told reporters.

The doses' arrival will boost hopes of curbing the outbreak, which the World Health Organization has declared a global public health emergency.

More than 44% of the 10,533 confirmed mpox cases in Congo are children under 15 years old, the latest Africa CDC data shows.

The vaccine from Japan will be used on children aged zero to five, Kaseya said. It is administered using a bifurcated needle, a technique that involves pricking the skin 15 times to deliver the vaccine.

This weekend, a delegation from Japan will come to Congo to carry out training for health workers who are not used to this method, the head of Congo's National Institute for Public Health, Dieudonne Mwamba, said during the same briefing.

Africa CDC has already asked Japan if additional doses are available for other countries on the continent, Kaseya said.

"We are negotiating with them, and we'll see what the outcome will be, but they were open to that," he told the briefing. (Reporting by Anait Miridzhanian Editing by Keith Weir)