Spain will donate 500,000 doses of the Mpox vaccine to countries in Central Africa experiencing a surge in cases, the government announced Tuesday.
These doses represent 20 percent of Spain’s total Mpox vaccine reserves, according to a statement from the health ministry, which did not specify the recipient countries or the timeline for delivery.
Spain also called on its European Union partners to donate 20 percent of their own Mpox vaccine stockpiles, arguing that “it makes no sense to stockpile vaccines where there is no problem,” the statement added.
France and Germany have each pledged to donate 100,000 doses of the Mpox vaccine to countries facing the outbreak.
Formerly known as monkeypox, Mpox is an infectious disease caused by a virus that can be transmitted to humans from infected animals or through close physical contact with an infected person.
The disease causes fever, muscle pain, skin lesions, and, increasingly, death.
A resurgence of the disease, along with the discovery of a new strain called Clade 1b in the Democratic Republic of Congo, led the World Health Organization to declare its highest level of international alert on August 14.
Outbreaks have been reported in Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda since July.
No Mpox cases have been reported in Spain so far. However, Sweden’s Public Health Agency announced earlier this month that it had detected a case of the Clade 1b variant of Mpox—the first in Europe—linked to a patient who had contracted the virus during a visit to an affected African country.