US holds 80% of global vaccine supply with 35% of monkeypox cases: Report

Amid the shortage of monkeypox vaccines, the US holds nearly 80 per cent of the Jynneos jab used to fight monkeypox, despite having only 35 per cent of the global cases of the virus, a report said on Friday.

According to the Public Citizen analysis, the US has 22 times more doses than the EU and the UK.

"Once again, vaccines for an outbreak are not available in the vast majority of countries, including in the African states that have fought monkeypox for years," Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen's Access to Medicines Programme, said in a statement.

"We still are waiting for President Biden to put forward a plan to fight global monkeypox and avoid the tragic mistakes of the Covid crisis," Maybarduk added.

The analysis compared vaccine access and monkeypox cases in more than a dozen countries.

For example, African countries where monkeypox is endemic, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, neither have access to doses nor orders secured, despite recording multiple deaths.

The report mentioned that no countries in Africa have any doses on hand or any orders placed. And Brazil, which has reported close to one in twelve cases globally, has no doses available.

As of August 25, the US had already obtained 1,100,000 vaccine doses for 16,602 cases -- or 66 doses for every case, with nearly 7 million in total ordered so far.

Earlier this month, advocates urged the Biden administration to use the Defense Production Act to ramp up and accelerate production of additional finished Jynneos vaccine doses and support expansion and diversification of vaccine production capacity globally.

--IANS

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