LONDON: The global vaccine group Gavi will buy 500,000 doses of Bavarian Nordic’s mpox vaccine, its first purchase of the shot to help battle an outbreak in parts of Africa, the group said on Wednesday.
In 2024, there have been more than 25,000 suspected mpox cases and 723 deaths in Africa, mainly in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the World Health Organization, which has declared the outbreak a global health emergency.
Gavi, a public-private alliance which co-funds vaccine purchases for low-income countries, said it will spend up to $50 million on the plan, which includes the transportation, delivery and costs of administering the vaccines. The doses are due to be delivered this year.
Around 3.6 million doses of mpox vaccine have already been pledged to the DRC by rich nations which have stockpiles, the World Health Organization has said, but only a small portion has arrived so far. The WHO approved the vaccine for use on Friday last week.
Gavi’s purchase, using a new facility set up after the COVID-19 pandemic to respond quickly to public health emergencies, could speed up the response in Congo and other affected countries.
Also on Wednesday, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria said it would provide $9.5 million to support Congo with its emergency response at the request of the government there, including surveillance, laboratory systems and risk communication.
The price of the vaccine was not disclosed. Gavi’s $50 million investment would likely equate to less than around $100 per vaccine, because transportation and logistics are included in the total. The figure is lower than previous estimates of the cost.
Gavi chief executive Sania Nishtar said the priority was working with partners “to turn these vaccines into vaccinations as quickly and effectively as possible and, over time, to build a global vaccine stockpile.”
The deal will significantly increase the availability of mpox vaccine for African countries, Bavarian Nordic chief executive Paul Chaplin said. Last week, the company said it would push back some existing orders to 2025, based on US government contracts, to focus on market needs now.
Mpox, which spreads through close contact and typically causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions, has been a public health problem in parts of Africa for decades. But vaccines have never previously been available outside clinical trials in affected countries in Africa, even after a different strain of the virus spread globally in 2022 and high-income countries used vaccines to help stem the outbreak.

KYIV: Ukrainian drones struck a large military depot in a town deep inside Russia overnight, causing a huge blaze and prompting the evacuation of some local residents, a Ukrainian official and Russian news reports said Wednesday.
Meanwhile, a senior US diplomat said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently said he has a plan for winning the war that “can work” and help end the conflict, which is now in its third year. But the Ukrainian leader hasn’t publicly spelled out the plan.
Ukraine claimed the strike destroyed Russian military warehouses in Toropets, a town in Russia’s Tver region about 380 kilometers (240 miles) northwest of Moscow and about 500 kilometers (300 miles) from the border with Ukraine.
The attack was carried out by Ukraine’s Security Service, along with Ukraine’s Intelligence and Special Operations Forces, a Kyiv security official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the operation.
According to the official, the depot housed Iskander and Tochka-U missiles, as well as glide bombs and artillery shells. He said the facility caught fire in the strike and was burning across an area 6 kilometers (4 miles) wide.
Among the destroyed ammunition were North Korean KN-23 short-range ballistic missiles, another official, in Ukraine’s Intelligence Office, told The AP. He was not authorized to comment publicly and didn’t provide evidence to support his claim.
Russia and North Korea signed a landmark pact last June that envisioned mutual military assistance between Moscow and Pyongyang.
More than 100 domestically-produced kamikaze drones were deployed in the attack on the depot, the Ukrainian Intelligence Office official added.
Russian state news agency RIA Novosti quoted regional authorities as saying air defense systems were working to repel a “massive drone attack” on Toropets, which has a population of around 11,000. The agency also reported a fire and the evacuation of some local residents.
There was no immediate information about whether the strikes had caused any casualties.
Successful Ukrainian strikes on targets deep inside Russia have become more common as the war has progressed and Kyiv developed its drone technology.
Zelensky is also seeking approval from Western nations for Ukraine to use the sophisticated weapons they are providing to hit targets inside Russia. Some Western leaders have balked at that possibility, fearing they could be dragged into the conflict.
Ukraine’s targeting of Russian military equipment, ammunition and infrastructure deep inside Russia, as well as making Russian civilians feel some of the consequences of the war that is being fought largely inside Ukraine, is part of Kyiv’s strategy.
The swift push by Ukrainian forces into Russia’s Kursk border region last month fits into that plan, which apparently seeks to compel Russian President Vladimir Putin to back down.
Putin, however, has shown no signs of backing down, and has been trying to grind down Ukraine’s resolve through attritional warfare and also sap the West’s support for Kyiv by drawing out the conflict. That has come at a price, however, as the UK Defense Ministry estimates that the war has likely killed and wounded more than 600,000 Russian troops.
On Tuesday, Putin ordered the country’s military to increase its number of troops by 180,000 to a total of 1.5 million by Dec. 1.
Zelensky last month said his plan for victory includes not only battlefield goals but also diplomatic and economic wins. The plan has been kept under wraps but the US Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said during a news conference Tuesday that Washington officials have seen it.
“We think it lays out a strategy and a plan that can work,” she said, adding that the United States will bring it up with other world leaders at the UN General Assembly in New York next week. She did not comment on what the plan contained.