United States: Mpox has emerged as another health calamity, with the world on its toes to tame it and make it manageable.
What was once a strain that had the majority of the cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo has now emerged in other areas in Africa.
It has also documented its first European case in Sweden, and the World Health Organization (WHO) declared it a global emergency last week.
More about the disease and cure
Mpox has killed hundreds of people, among whom were children because this new virus has hung around and spread. However, the majority of the cases have been mild so far.
Only one company has the vaccine for it – Danish vaccine maker Bavarian Nordic, as fortune.com reported.
Last week, when the situation started getting critical, Denmark-based pharma giant Bavarian Nordic donated forty thousand doses of its mpox vaccine known as Imvanex to African public health authorities.
Other sub-regional and local organizations like the European Commission have also vowed to share 215,000 vaccines shipped from its stockpiling to the African health ministries.
It was approved in 2022 when there was a health emergency over mpox and when the vaccine was useful to an extent in containing the problem.
The most vulnerable members of a given population are still in want of more of Imvanex, which is also known as Jynneos. Congo, where most of the cases have been reported, has no vaccines at all.
About the Danish pharma giant
The company, Bavarian Nordic, was established in 1994 and focused on the creation of vaccines, among which one can mention Mpox, Typhoid, and Rabies.
It is the only company that has been authorized to produce and sell its mpox vaccine by the European Union, the US, and other countries.
It started developing a smallpox vaccine, like the one used for mpox and was collaborating with the US government as early as 2003, as fortune.com reported.
In other diseases, Bavarian Nordic has been very vital in the development and provision of vaccines such as the Ebola virus. For example, in 2021, the company received a fundraising order for the cost of USD twenty-eight million from Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson.
Even after the mpox outbreak two years ago, governments and regional health departments have been procuring vaccine stocks.
At the time, the EU paid for 2 million vaccine doses and authorized the use among adults in smallpox and monkeypox cases as both viruses are related.