COPENHAGEN: Danish biotech firm Bavarian Nordic said on Saturday it plans to ramp up production of its mpox vaccine and work with international health organisations to ensure fair access as the disease has been declared a global public health emergency.
The company, one of the few drug firms that have an mpox vaccine, said it has informed the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that it can manufacture 10 million doses of the vaccine by the end of 2025, and could already supply up to 2 million doses this year.
The company said that it is expanding its production network to include Africa, and is prepared to work with Africa CDC as well as the World Health Organization (WHO) to make the vaccine accessible to all countries.
Earlier this week, the WHO declared mpox a global public health emergency for the second time in two years.
The viral infection, which causes pus-filled lesions and flu-like symptoms, is usually mild but can kill. Two strains are now spreading in Congo and neighbouring countries - the endemic form of the virus, clade I, and a new offshoot called clade Ib.
There have been 27,000 cases and more than 1,100 deaths, mainly among children, in Congo since the current outbreak began in January 2023.
Bavarian Nordic to ramp up production of mpox vaccine
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Bavarian Nordic to ramp up production of mpox vaccine
- The company said it is prepared to work with Africa CDC as well as WHO to make the vaccine accessible to all countries
- The viral infection is usually mild but can kill
Sudanese man jailed in UK for murdering asylum hotel worker
- Deng Chol Majek followed Rhiannon Whyte, 27, to a railway station in October 2024
- He stabbed her 23 times to the head, chest and arm with a screwdriver
LONDON: A Sudanese asylum seeker was jailed on Friday for a minimum of 29 years for murdering a woman who worked at the hotel in central England where he and other migrants were being housed.
Anti-immigration activists have seized on other criminal cases involving asylum seekers, predominantly young men, in hotels to argue that they are a danger to nearby communities.
Last summer, a number of protests at asylum hotels across England – sparked by the arrest of an Ethiopian asylum seeker for sexually assaulting a teenage girl and a woman – turned violent.
The Labour government, nervous of the rise of the anti-immigration Reform UK party in opinion polls, has promised to clamp down on illegal immigration and, by 2029, to stop placing asylum seekers in hotels while their cases are processed.
Deng Chol Majek followed Rhiannon Whyte, 27, to a railway station in October 2024 after she finished her shift.
He stabbed her 23 times to the head, chest and arm with a screwdriver. She died in hospital three days later.
Majek was convicted in October and sentenced on Friday to life imprisonment with a minimum of 29 years at Coventry Crown Court, where some anti-immigration protesters gathered outside for the hearing.
Judge Michael Soole said the murder was “particularly vicious” and told Majek there had been a “chilling composure in every aspect of your behavior.”
