Moving Mpox Vaccine Stock Into DRC And Burundi: A Series Of Regulatory And Logistical Hurdles... And Some Bureaucratic Delays.

The time is now. Past now, actually (the vials could have been purchased and delivered over a year ago).

We must move very large boluses of palletized doses of the vaccine (however we do it) into sub-Saharan Africa, right now. Four nations so far. . . and we need about 3 million doses, immediately -- probably about 10 million within a year. Here's a bit from Reuters' (free) reporting (the NYT also has a piece behind its paywall):

. . .Among the hurdles: It took the World Health Organization (WHO) until this month to start officially the process needed to give poor countries easy access to large quantities of vaccine via international agencies.

In response to Reuters questions about the delays in vaccine deployment, the U.N. health agency said on Friday it would relax some of its procedures on this occasion in an effort to now accelerate poor countries' access to the mpox shots. Buying the expensive vaccines directly is out of reach for many low-income countries. There are two key mpox shots, made by Denmark's Bavarian Nordic and Japan's KM Biologics. Bavarian Nordic's costs $100 a dose; the price of KM Biologics' is unknown. . . .

The long wait for WHO approval for international agencies to buy and distribute the vaccine has forced individual African governments and the continent's public health agency - the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – to instead request donations of shots from rich countries. That cumbersome process can collapse, as it has before, if donors feel they should keep the vaccine to protect their own people. . . .

[N]o shots have been available in Africa outside clinical trials. A key reason: Vaccines needed to be greenlit by the WHO before they could be bought by public healthcare groups including Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. Gavi helps poorer countries buy shots, supplying childhood vaccines in this way routinely. It administered a global scheme for all vaccines during COVID-19 and has up to $500 million to spend on mpox vaccines and logistics. . . .

To be certain, this is no COVID style event -- and nothing like ebola (at only 10% lethal compared to about 85%). Still, it could in time be a much larger problem -- if we don't get aggressive with funding and manufacturing reserves, even at MSD Europe, for example -- as a contract manufacturer, very quickly (as I suggested at the head of the week).

We all -- collectively -- must do better. People's lives are dependent upon. . . us. Onward.

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