LIVE UPDATES
Nigeria became the first African country to obtain the Mpox vaccine.
Last week, it received 10,000 doses from the United States to strengthen its efforts against an outbreak.
However, Africa has only received a minimal amount of vaccines, and nations like the Democratic Republic of Congo, the center of the outbreak, still have no vaccines available.
UNICEF's Deputy Director for Immunization Supplies attributes the delays to bureaucratic hurdles.
A specialist in Infectious Diseases in Nigeria, Professor Oyewale Tomori, stresses the importance of prioritizing additional measures, such as ensuring proper case identification, enhancing surveillance, and isolating affected individuals and tracing their contacts.
The Democratic Republic of Congo reports the highest number of cases, with over 18,000 suspected infections and 629 fatalities, 463 of them children. Unfortunately, the mpox vaccine available to African countries is not suitable for children.
