The pharmaceutical industry may get a boon from production of the “monkeypox” vaccine following a public health emergency declaration from the WHO.
As previously relayed by The Dallas Express, the international public health body issued the declaration last week, with exceptionally high numbers of infections being logged in Africa, particularly the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Here’s some of what The Epoch Times reported on the potential financial windfall vaccine manufacturers might see:
Shares of mpox vaccine maker Bavarian Nordic saw an increase this week after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a public health emergency and as the company’s CEO announced it could provide 10 million doses of the vaccine.
“We have inventory and we have the capabilities. What we’re missing are the orders,” CEO Paul Chaplin told Bloomberg this week.The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) previously said it needed 10 million doses to deal with an mpox, also known as monkeypox, outbreak that has spread from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to other African nations. WHO and other health officials say that the strain of mpox appears to be more deadly than another variant that caused a worldwide outbreak in 2022 and 2023.
In the interview, Chaplin said his firm has has 300,000 doses of the vaccine ready to be distributed right away, while adding that 2 million doses could be provided to Africa by the end of 2024. “We are in late August already, so it really does need some speed in the decision making to be able to do that,” he said.