European countries have started vaccinating people against the outbreak of the monkeypox virus. Spain will purchase Monkeypox vaccine, the health minister said on Wednesday as an attempt to contain the spread of the Monkeypox virus in the country.
According to Spanish national news El País, ”Spain’s Health and Defence ministries are to buy 2 million vaccine doses for the traditional smallpox virus at a cost of €7.2 million.”
Spain also intends to obtain Imvanex smallpox vaccines and Tecovirimat antivirals according to Daily Sabah. This decision came after the Spanish government announced 59 cases of Monkeypox. Imvanex vaccine, which is made by the Danish company Bavarian Nordic, received a marketing authorization valid throughout the EU on 31 July 2013.
At a news conference in Madrid, Health Minister Carolina Darias said. “We are going to distribute the vaccine proportionally among the (17 Spanish regions),”.
Of Spain’s 51 total cases, all of them have been reported in the region of Madrid, most of them traced to an adult sauna that was shuttered last week, and other cases were linked to a Gay Pride festival in Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands.
Meanwhile, Spain’s neighbors Portugal confirmed 10 new cases of Monkeypox bringing its total to 49 while the three suspected cases in Morocco turned out to be negative.
The U.K. has already offered 1,000 doses of the vaccine to suspected cases and health workers caring for people with the virus. France on the other hand announced on Tuesday, that it is promoting a vaccination campaign to contain the outbreak as confirmed cases had risen to five.
According to Reuters, the health minister of Denmark announced on Wednesday that Denmark as well will receive 200 Monkeypox vaccines from the Netherlands this week and is working on buying thousands more.
President Biden said on Sunday that the US is ordering available vaccines that can be used to treat both smallpox and Monkeypox saying that ” everybody should be concerned as cases continue beef up”.
As reported by the BBC, The Czech Republic and Slovenia also reported their first cases on Tuesday, joining 18 other countries to detect the virus outside Africa.
The WHO’s director for Global Infectious Hazard Preparedness, Dr.Sylvie Briand, said at a press conference on Tuesday.” We encourage you all to increase the surveillance of Monkeypox to see where transmission levels are and understand where it is going”.
Monkeypox is a viral disease that was first discovered in humans in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Most cases since then have been in Africa.
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