(Photo : WHO)

Democratic Republic of Congo, one of the countries which is worst-hit bythe recent mpox outbreak, received its first doses of mpox vaccines on Thursday 5 Sep., Reuters reported.

The first batch of 99,000 doses arrived in a plane in the capital Kinshasha at 13:00 local time(12:00 GMT), according to latest reports from the news agency.

Thabani Maphosa, Managing Director of Country Programmes Delivery at Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance,had earlier confirmed to Reutersthat they expect delivery of around 200,000 doses of mpox vaccines.

Meanwhile, officials revealed that they face some critical challenges in launching the vaccine campaign immediately.Due to the large size of the country and difficulties in convincing the communities to participate in the vaccine campaign, it will take at least one month before thevaccine gets administeredto the public.

"The vaccine will not be distributed as soon as it is received," CrisKacita, head of Congo's mpox outbreak response chief, told Reuters. "We need to communicate so that the population accepts the vaccination," he added later.

Due to the limited number of doses, contacts of known cases will be given first preference, according to Reuters.

While expressing concerns over the false information spreading around the vaccine,Maria Van Kerkhove, American infectious disease epidemiologist and director of epidemic and pandemic prevention at the World Health Organization (WHO), saidthey have to first "look at the communication around who will get them (the vaccines) first."

On receiving the vaccines on time, officials said they will start the first wave of vaccination on Oct 8.

The second delivery of vaccine doses is expected on Saturday 7 Sep. The mpox vaccines manufactured by Bavarian Nordic are donated to Congo by European Union.

Mpox, a viral illness caused by the monkey pox virus- a species of the genus Orthopoxvirus- was first reported in monkeys kept in a research lab in Denmark in 1958. In 1970, Democratic Republic of the Congo, reported the first human case of mpox in a nine-month-old boy.

The viral disease started spreading to different parts of the world in 2022. According to a WHO report, between January 2022 and August 2024, more than 120 countries have reported cases of mpox with one lakh laboratory confirmed cases of mpox and more than 220 deaths.

Monkeypox is caused mainly by clade I and clade II viruses. Clade I is more contagious and deadlier than the latter. Some countries affected by mpox include DRC, Burundi, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya. DRC is affected by clade I. It has reported 18,000 cases of mpox and 629 deaths this year.

On 14 August 2024, WHO declared the mpox outbreak as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).

In an attempt to control the recent monkeypox outbreak, UNICEF recently issued an emergency tender to obtain mpox vaccines for the countries, worst -hit by the viral disease.

Recently on 27 Aug,Nigeria receiveda donation of around 10,000 doses of the mpox vaccine fromthe U.S. Agency for International Development or USAID.