Around a third of Mpox vaccines donated by Japan to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are being wasted because they cannot be stored once prepared for use, the head of DRC’s Mpox response told Reuters.
Japan has donated three million doses of its LC16 vaccine to DRC’s to help fight a new form of Mpox known as clade Ib, which spread internationally and sparked a global health emergency last year.
The second tranche of 1.5 million doses arrived in C in September, around two years after the outbreak began.
DRC began vaccinating with LC16 in Kinshasa in August and more than half a million people have now been vaccinated with either LC16 or Bavarian Nordic’s vaccine, Cris Kacita, DRC’s Mpox lead, said, although some data is outstanding.
The World Health Organisation guides countries to expect that between 5% and 50% of vaccines are wasted, with vaccines made like LC16 usually on the higher end due to the storage challenge.
Mpox is a viral infection that spreads through close contact and typically causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions.
It is usually mild but can be fatal, particularly for children, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems.
–Reuters–
