GENEVA: The World Health Organization said Friday it has granted its first authorization for use of a vaccine against mpox in adults, calling it an important step toward fighting the disease in Africa and beyond.
The pre-qualification of the vaccine by Bavarian Nordic A/S means that donors like GAVI the Vaccine Alliance and UNICEF can buy it. But supplies are limited because there’s only a single manufacturer.
“This first pre-qualification of a vaccine against mpox is an important step in our fight against the disease, both in the context of the current outbreaks in Africa, and in future,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
The UN health agency chief called for “urgent” scale-up of procurement, donations and rollout to get the vaccine where it is needed most, along with other response measures.
Under the WHO authorization, the vaccine can be administered in people aged 18 or above in a two-dose regimen. The approval says that while the vaccine is not currently licensed for those under 18 years old, it may be used in infants, children and adolescents “in outbreak settings where the benefits of vaccination outweigh the potential risks.”
Officials at the Africa Center for Disease Control and Prevention said last month that nearly 70 percent of cases in Congo — the country hardest hit by mpox — are in children younger than 15, who also accounted for 85 percent of deaths.
On Thursday, the Africa CDC said 107 new deaths and 3,160 new cases had been recorded in the past week, just a week after it and WHO launched a continental response plan.
Mpox belongs to the same family of viruses as smallpox but causes milder symptoms like fever, chills and body aches. People with more serious cases can develop lesions on the face, hands, chest and genitals.
WHO grants first mpox vaccine approval to ramp up response to disease in Africa and beyond
https://arab.news/9835q
WHO grants first mpox vaccine approval to ramp up response to disease in Africa and beyond
- The vaccine can be administered in people aged 18 or above a two-dose regimen
Bolivia and Israel to restore ties severed over the war in Gaza
- Paz's government eased visa restrictions on American and Israeli travelers last month
- The Bolivian foreign ministry said its top diplomat would meet his Israeli counterpart in Washington later Tuesday to discuss the revival of bilateral ties
LA PAZ, Bolivia: Bolivia's new right-wing government said Tuesday that it would restore diplomatic relations with Israel, the latest sign of the dramatic geopolitical realignment underway in the South American country that was once among the most vocal critics of Israeli policies toward Palestinians.
The Bolivian foreign ministry said its top diplomat would meet his Israeli counterpart in Washington later Tuesday to discuss the revival of bilateral ties, which Bolivia's previous left-wing government severed two years ago over Israel's devastating campaign against Hamas in Gaza.
Bolivia said the effort came as part of a new foreign policy strategy under conservative President Rodrigo Paz aimed at “rebuilding Bolivia's international prestige, opening new economic opportunities and strengthening alliances that directly benefit the country and our citizens abroad."
Bolivian Foreign Minister Fernando Aramayo is in the midst of a whirlwind trip to Washington for meetings with American officials as his government works to warm long-chilly relations with the United States and unravel nearly two decades of hard-line, anti-Western policies under the Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, party that left Bolivia economically isolated and diplomatically allied with China, Russia and Venezuela.
Paz's government eased visa restrictions on American and Israeli travelers last month.
In announcing his expected meeting with Aramayo on Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar thanked Bolivia for scrapping Israeli visa controls and said he spoke to Paz after the center-right senator's Oct. 19 election victory to express “Israel’s desire to open a new chapter” in relations with Bolivia.
Paz entered office last month, ending the dominance of the MAS party founded by Evo Morales, the charismatic former coca-growing union leader who became Bolivia's first Indigenous president in 2006. Not long after taking power, Morales sent Israel's ambassador packing and cozied up to Iran over their shared enmity toward the U.S. and Israel.
When protests over Morales' disputed 2019 reelection prompted him to resign under pressure from the military, a right-wing interim government took over and restored full diplomatic relations with the U.S. and Israel as it sought to undo many of Morales’ popular policies.
But 2020 elections brought the MAS party back to power with the presidency of Luis Arce, who in 2023 once again cut ties with Israel in protest over its military actions in Gaza.
Other left-wing Latin American countries, like Chile and Colombia, soon made similar moves, recalling their ambassadors and joining South Africa’s genocide case against Israel before the United Nations’ highest judicial body.
