The campaign must continue more widely from Monday, particularly in the neighboring province of South Kivu where the current epidemic appeared a year ago, according to health authorities.
At this stage, no “mass vaccination”
In Goma on Saturday, the chief of staff of the Minister of Health Romain Muboyayi promised a “total fight” against “this preventable and curable disease”. “The deployment of the vaccine marks an important step in limiting the spread of the virus,” welcomed Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa, quoted in a press release.
During a press conference on Friday, the Minister of Health Samuel-Roger Kamba, however, stressed that at this stage it is not a question of “mass vaccination” but of targeting populations at risk (caregivers, sex workers, homosexuals, etc.).
No precise date has been communicated for vaccination in Kinshasa. The crowded Congolese capital has been relatively spared from the epidemic but a recent rapid increase in cases, reported by the African Union health agency (Africa CDC), raises the specter of large-scale contamination.
“It is not with 265,000 doses that we solve the problem”
Since the start of the year, the DRC has recorded more than 30,000 cases and nearly 990 deaths. According to the WHO, the country concentrates 90% of contaminations recorded in the world. Some 70% of deaths concern children under the age of five, according to health authorities. But vaccination is only aimed at adults at this stage.
The country, among the five poorest on the planet, received 265,000 doses donated by the European Union and the United States last month. This vaccine, manufactured by the Danish laboratory Bavarian Nordic, is approved only for use in adults. Tests are currently being conducted for use in children under 17 years of age.
Another vaccine, which can be used in children, is authorized by Japan, with which the DRC is in discussions for a possible supply of some three million doses. “You can imagine that in a country of 100 million inhabitants, it is not with 265,000 doses that we solve the problem,” Samuel-Roger Kamba insisted on Friday, specifying that adults must normally receive two doses to be fully immunized.
In Africa, the virus is present in at least 16 countries
The DRC must also receive 4,500 early diagnostic PCR tests. The WHO announced on Friday that it had given the green light to the test to detect the strain of the virus with swabs from skin lesions. Several outbreaks of mpox are currently underway in central Africa. The resurgence of cases and the appearance of a new variant in the DRC pushed the WHO to trigger its highest level of global alert in August.
Previously called monkeypox, mpox is a viral disease that spreads from animals to humans but is also transmitted between humans, causing fever, muscle pain and skin lesions. The virus is currently present in 16 countries in Africa, according to the Africa CDC.
