Danish pharmaceutical company Bavarian Nordic announced on Wednesday that it has signed a contract to supply 440,000 doses of its monkeypox vaccine, Imvax, to unnamed European countries.
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared last week that the rapid spread of a new, more dangerous strain of monkeypox, known as Clade 1b, has reached the status of a global health emergency—the highest level of alert the agency can issue.
Bavarian Nordic stated that this order was anticipated and included in the company’s forecasts for the year.
The company’s CEO, Paul Chaplin, emphasized that the recent order was part of the company’s core planning for the year and would not impact its capacity to support governments and organizations in responding to the global health emergency declared by the WHO, which has raised international concerns about monkeypox.
The vaccine manufacturer also indicated its readiness to provide up to 10 million doses of its monkeypox vaccine by the end of 2025.
The WHO has called for a significant increase in vaccine production and emphasized that vaccination campaigns should be a top priority for affected countries.
The African Union’s health agency announced last week that approximately 200,000 doses would be distributed across Africa, thanks to an agreement with the European Union and Bavarian Nordic. The company’s vaccine has been approved for monkeypox prevention since 2019.
This week, France announced it would donate 100,000 doses of the monkeypox vaccine to countries reporting cases. The United States also pledged to donate 50,000 doses to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has reported over 16,000 cases and 500 deaths this year.
