Kinshasa, October 5 (IANS). The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will launch the first phase of a vaccination campaign on Saturday, DRC Health Minister Roger Kamba has said.
According to Xinhua news agency, vaccination, which was earlier scheduled to take place from Wednesday, will now begin from Goma, the capital of Kivu province. Here there is the highest outbreak of Clade 2B virus, which spreads through sexual contact.
Regarding vaccination, Minister Kamba said that it will soon reach South Kivu, where most people are affected by this disease, according to him, currently about 265,000 vaccine doses are available.
“We take into account the doses we have and the strategy adopted, that is, vaccinating the most affected areas first. So it will start in the east,” he said about the campaign.
Kamba said that given the number of doses available, the current phase of vaccination mainly involves adults. The country plans to vaccinate 2.5 million people with 3.5 million vaccine doses.
He said, “We will try to vaccinate adults first because the vaccine we have received is already approved for adults. Research shows that it can also be used in children under 17 years of age.” But for now, given the number of doses we have, we will start with adults.”
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the DRC is the epicenter of infection for all cases of mpox recorded in the African region.
WHO declared Mpox (formerly known as Monkeypox) as a public health emergency of international concern. The infection due to Clade 1B has spread more rapidly. This is a new, more dangerous and deadly variant, whose mortality rate is much higher than previous variants.
-IANS
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