The World Health Organization (WHO) has prequalified the MVA-BN vaccine, which is designed to combat the ongoing mpox outbreak affecting various regions of Africa, the UN agency announced on Friday.
“This first prequalification of a vaccine against mpox is an important step in our fight against the disease, both in the context of the current outbreaks in Africa, and in future,” stated WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a press release.
The prequalification of this vaccine by WHO allows specialized UN agencies, such as the Vaccine Alliance and UNICEF, along with governments, to expedite their orders.
“The WHO prequalification of the MVA-BN vaccine will help accelerate ongoing procurement of the mpox vaccines by governments and international agencies… on the frontlines of the ongoing emergency in Africa and beyond,” said Yukiko Nakatani, WHO’s assistant chief in charge of access to medicines and health products.
Mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, is a viral disease that spreads from animals to humans and can also be transmitted between people, causing symptoms such as fever, muscle aches, and skin lesions.
The resurgence of mpox in Africa—particularly impacting the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda—as well as the emergence of a new variant (1b), prompted the WHO to declare the highest level of global health alert on August 14.
“We now need urgent scale up in procurement, donations and rollout to ensure equitable access to vaccines where they are needed most,” emphasized the WHO chief.
Since the onset of the global outbreak in 2022, over 120 countries have reported more than 103,000 cases of mpox. The vaccine produced by Bavarian Nordic A/S can be administered to individuals over the age of 18 in a two-dose regimen, with doses given four weeks apart.
