Nearly 800,000 doses of mpox vaccine pledged to African countries working to stamp out devastating outbreaks are headed for the waste bin because they weren't shipped in time, according to reporting by Politico.
The nearly 800,000 doses were part of a donation promised under the Biden administration, which was meant to deliver more than 1 million doses. Overall, the US, the European Union, and Japan pledged to collectively provide 5 million doses to nearly a dozen African countries. The US has only sent 91,000 doses so far, and only 220,000 currently still have enough shelf life to make it. The rest are expiring within six months, making them ineligible for shipping.
"For a vaccine to be shipped to a country, we need a minimum of six months before expiration to ensure that the vaccine can arrive in good condition and also allow the country to implement the vaccination," Yap Boum, an Africa CDC deputy incident manager, told Politico.
© Getty | Nicholas Kajoba
With the abrupt withdrawal of the US, the World Health Organization is grappling with a brutal funding shortfall, leaving the United Nations health agency to slash top leadership and run global programs on a budget similar to that of a local hospital system.
In remarks at a budget committee meeting Wednesday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus laid out the daunting budget numbers and announced a slimmed structure, cutting senior management from 14 to seven and the number of departments from 76 to 34.
"The loss of US funding, combined with reductions in official development assistance by some other countries, mean we are facing a salary gap for the next biennium of more than US$ 500 million," Tedros said.
© Getty | FABRICE COFFRINI
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