The World Health Organisation and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention have committed to guiding the development of targeted mpox vaccine preparedness and deployment plans to ensure the efficient use of available doses.

Mpox strains are still mutating, further raising the risk of spread both in Africa and globally, Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention Director-General Jean Kaseya said.

The trial will be conducted in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in partnership with Emergent BioSolutions.

The Africa CDC said the vaccination deployment guide was created in anticipation of the vaccine delivery to the region.

The African continent is still in the acute phase of the Mpox outbreak as the number of cases reported so far this year surpassed the 50,000 mark, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has warned.

African Union health watchdog’s chief has said mpox outbreak is ‘still on the upward trend generally’ as cases spread. The African Union’s health watchdog has warned that the mpox outbreak was still not under control and appealed for resources to avoid a “more severe” pandemic than COVID-19.

The spread of mpox has slowed down slightly across Africa but the epidemic is not over, the African Union's health watchdog said Thursday.

Over the past week, 2,345 cases were reported across the continent, along with 34 more deaths. The region this year has reported 48,093 cases, a rise of 500% compared to all of 2023, Ngashi Ngongo, MD, PhD, who leads Africa CDC's mpox incident management team, said at the agency's weekly briefing.