Danish pharmaceutical company Bavarian Nordic announced on Wednesday that it had signed a contract to supply 440.000 doses of its vaccine for mpox, formerly known as the blessing of the monkeys, to an "unspecified European country".
The World Health Organization (WHO) last week declared the rapid spread of the new, more dangerous strain of mpox, known as Clade 1b, a public health emergency of international concern — the highest level of alert the UN agency can issue .
Bavarian Nordic said the order was expected and included in the company's forecasts for the year.
The pharmaceutical company announced last week that it is ready to supply up to 10 million doses of its mpox vaccine by the end of 2025.
The UN health agency called for a significant increase in vaccine production and stressed that a vaccination campaign should be a top priority for affected countries.
Last week, the African Union health agency said about 200.000 vaccines would be distributed across Africa, thanks to agreements with the EU and the Danish pharmaceutical company, whose vaccine was approved in 2019.
This week France announced it would donate 100.000 doses of mpox vaccine to countries affected by the emergency, and the United States said it would donate 50.000 doses of mpox vaccine to the 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 case of Clade 1b outside of Africa.