Mpox vaccine maker gets European order for 440,000 doses

Danish drugmaker Bavarian Nordic said Wednesday it had signed a contract to supply 440,000 doses of its mpox vaccine to an "undisclosed European country".

The World Health Organization (WHO) last week declared the rapid spread of the new, more dangerous mpox strain, dubbed Clade 1b, a public health emergency of international concern -- the highest alarm the UN agency can sound.

Bavarian Nordic said the order was anticipated and included in the company's projections for the year.

"The latest order was planned as part of our original guidance for this year, and as such, will not impact the remaining capacity that is available to support governments and organizations to address the current WHO declared Public Health Emergency of International Concern for mpox," Paul Chaplin, CEO of Bavarian Nordic, said in a statement.

The vaccine maker said last week that it was ready to supply up to 10 million doses of its vaccine targeting mpox by the end of 2025.

The UN health agency has called for a major increase in vaccine production and said that a vaccination campaign must be a key priority for affected countries.

Last week, the health agency of the African Union said some 200,000 vaccines would be deployed across Africa, thanks to agreements with the EU and the Danish drugmaker, whose vaccine was approved in 2019.

France this week announced that it would donate 100,000 mpox vaccine doses to countries suffering from the emergency and the United States has said it will donate 50,000 mpox vaccine doses to Democratic Republic of Congo, which has reported more than 16,000 cases and 500 deaths this year.

On August 15 Sweden reported the first confirmed Clade 1b case outside Africa.