- The European Union will sign an agreement on Tuesday to buy 110,000 doses of vaccine to combat the ongoing Monkeypox outbreak, a senior EU official said.){kind=link}
Monkeypox (The Times Groupe)- The European Union will sign an agreement on Tuesday to buy 110,000 doses of vaccine to combat the ongoing Monkeypox outbreak, a senior EU official said.
“Today, we will conclude a contract for nearly 110,000 Monkeypox vaccine doses. Funded by EU4Health, they will be available quickly to Member States most in need,” European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Stella Kyriakides tweeted.
On the sidelines of a meeting of EU health ministers in Luxembourg, Kyriakides said deliveries will begin at the end of June.
While COVID19 vaccines were procured by the European Commission and paid for individually by EU countries, the Monkeypox contract will initially be funded from the common EU budget.
“This is the first time that we’re using EU funds in order to purchase vaccines that we can then distribute to member states,” the commissioner said. “This shows what we can (do) when we work together and the power of having the structures in place so that we can immediately respond to a crisis such as we have now.”
The EU currently has 900 cases of the rare zoonotic disease, with nearly 1,400 cases worldwide, Stella Kyriakides said.
According to the latest update by the World Health Organization (WHO), cases have been confirmed in 28 countries since the outbreak was detected in early May.