The Democratic Republic of Congo, the epicentre of an mpox outbreak, on Thursday received its first vaccines -- almost half of 200,000 doses donated by the European Union and due to arrive by the end of the week to fight its spread.

The DRC has recorded more than 19,000 mpox cases and over 650 deaths, according to the latest figures from the health minister.

"The vaccines have arrived in the DRC. They are now on their way to storage areas and the vaccination campaign should begin at the end of the month," Laurent Muschel head of the EU's Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA) told AFP.

Congolese Health Minister Samuel-Roger Kamba and Muschel were present at Kinshasa airport when the plane carrying 99,100 vaccine doses landed, an AFP journalist said.

The doses left the Danish capital Copenhagen on Wednesday evening.

"These are expensive vaccines that we cannot buy as a country... and for which we fought," Kamba said.

Mpox is caused by a virus transmitted to humans by infected animals but can also be passed from human to human through close physical contact.

Sometimes deadly, it causes fever, muscular aches and large boil-like skin lesions.

The remainder of the 200,000 doses donated by the EU are set to arrive in Kinshasa on Saturday.

The World Health Organization declared an international emergency on August 14, concerned by the surge in cases of the new Clade 1b strain in the DRC that spread to nearby countries.

Muschel said 560,000 doses will be given by the EU and some of its member states to the DRC and other affected countries.

Mpox is now present in 13 African countries, including Burundi, Congo-Brazzaville and the Central African Republic, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).

The vaccines arriving in the DRC this week come from the Danish pharmaceutical laboratory Bavarian Nordic.

It is the only vaccine approved in Europe and the United States and is only intended for adults.