NHS stockpiles MPOX vaccine as cases spread around the world and Britain prepares to battle deadly strain
Britain has urgently stocked up on MPOX vaccines as the new, dangerous virus emerges in Britain.
NHS staff have also been given guidance by the UK Health Security Agency to ensure they recognise symptoms of the Clade 1 mpox variant.
The disease, which experts say is spreading faster and has a higher death rate than the previous outbreak two years ago, has been found in Sweden and Pakistan.
The latest MPOX variant was first identified in the Democratic Republic of Congo and is considered the most dangerous yet.
The first symptoms resemble flu. A rash, often starting on the face, then spreads over the body and leads to a systemic infection.
Mpox causes painful, pus-filled blisters. A patient with mpox has his temperature taken in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo
Single-dose vials of the Jynneos vaccine for mpox are seen from a cooler at a vaccination site in Los Angeles in 2022
The World Health Organization has declared the mutant mpox a global public health emergency after the disease quickly spread to at least 13 countries.
Research shows that in Central and Southern Africa, up to 10 percent of infected children and 5 percent of adults have died from the new variant, where the transmission of the virus is facilitated by porous borders.
More than 500 people are believed to have died in the Democratic Republic of Congo alone.
Professor Paul Hunter, a specialist in medical microbiology, told Sky News it is “highly likely” that someone in Britain already has the new variant, although it is likely to take a few weeks before that is confirmed.
He said the risk of infection was “very low” unless people had multiple sexual partners.
Danish biotechnology company Bavarian Nordic said Saturday it plans to ramp up production of its mpox vaccine and collaborate with international health organizations to ensure equitable access, as the disease has been declared a global public health emergency.
The company, one of the few pharmaceutical companies with an MPOX vaccine, said it has informed the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that it can produce 10 million doses of the vaccine by the end of 2025 and that it can deliver up to 2 million doses this year.
Zeil Rosenberg, MD, executive vice president of Tonix Pharmaceuticals, a company currently developing an mpox vaccine, told MailOnline that the disease is now spreading to regions where it was not endemic in the past, raising concerns about a repeat of the deadly 2022 outbreak that infected nearly 100,000 people.
“The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) continues to be at the centre of an unchecked explosion of cases, with 11,000 cases reported this year alone and showing no signs of abating,” he warned.
Jean Kakura Biyambo, a father of six from the Muja camp for displaced people in the Democratic Republic of Congo, makes a gesture from a general hospital where he is being treated for mpox, on July 16
A 1997 image shows symptoms of MPOX in a patient in the Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire
Britain has been stockpiling MPOX vaccines and treatments to prepare for a dangerous new strain of the virus that has caused a global health emergency
He explained that there are currently two clades of mpox in circulation. The first has more severe symptoms and a mortality rate of up to ten percent. The second, responsible for the 2022 outbreak, is less deadly but has historically thrived outside of Africa.
“The most severe and deadly Clade 1 mpox, historically endemic to Central Africa…, has become dominant and is now found throughout the region,” he warned.
The NHS is now urging people who have been to West Africa in the past three months and are showing symptoms to see a doctor as soon as possible, amid fears the virus could spread beyond Africa.
