Working on Monkeypox vaccine: Serum Institute CEO
New Delhi: The Serum Institute of India has said that the Company is currently working on developing a Monkeypox vaccine to address the growing threat posed by the disease.
Mpox outbreak was declared a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organisation on August 14. The move came after a sudden increase in cases was recorded in parts of Africa.
In July 2022, the multi-country outbreak of mpox was declared a public health emergency of international concern as it spread rapidly via sexual contact across a range of countries where the virus had not been seen before. That public health emergency of international concern was declared over in May 2023 after there had been a sustained decline in global cases.
Mpox has been reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for more than a decade, and the number of cases reported each year has increased steadily over that period. Last year, reported cases increased significantly, and already the number of cases reported so far this year has exceeded last year’s total, with more than 15 600 cases and 537 deaths.
The emergence last year and rapid spread of a new virus strain in Democratic Republic of the Congo , clade 1b, which appears to be spreading mainly through sexual networks, and its detection in countries neighbouring the Democratic Republic of the Congo is especially concerning, and one of the main reasons for the declaration of the public health emergency of international concern.
In the past month, over 100 laboratory-confirmed cases of clade 1b have been reported in four countries neighbouring the Democratic Republic of the Congo that have not reported mpox before: Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda.
Several outbreaks of different clades of mpox have occurred in different countries, with different modes of transmission and different levels of risk.
