Germany is set to donate 100,000 doses of mpox vaccines from its military reserves to help curb the ongoing outbreak in Africa, according to a government spokesperson on Monday.
The vaccines, drawn from the German army’s stockpile of around 117,000 Jynneos doses procured in 2022, will be distributed primarily to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, and other affected nations in East Africa.
In addition to the vaccine donation, Germany will provide the World Health Organization (WHO) with flexible financial resources to combat the mpox outbreak. The government also plans to support its African partners through the GAVI vaccination alliance, as part of a broader effort to manage the crisis.
While Germany will retain a minimal vaccine stock for emergency use, such as protecting travelling officials, a defence ministry spokesperson noted that any decision to reorder vaccines would require separate deliberation.
The World Health Organization recently declared mpox a global public health emergency after an outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo spread to neighboring countries. The emergence of a new viral strain, clade Ib, has heightened concerns about the speed of transmission across the region.
Germany is now focused on ensuring the rapid delivery of vaccines to the affected areas, with the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a primary target, according to a foreign ministry spokesperson.
