The Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Dr. Monica Musenero has revealed plans by the Government to manufacture vaccines for the Monkey Pox virus that is ravaging some African nations.
The Minister made the revelation while interfacing with lawmakers of the Presidential Affairs Committee where she appeared to provide an update on some of the projects undertaken at her Ministry.
“Teams are coming from Africa and from elsewhere and the government is going to work on a strategy to make sure we create diagnostics, vaccines, and drugs against Monkey Pox which is the next big thing that has already been declared as public health threat.” She said.
According to the World Health Organisation, there are already vaccines on the market against Monkeypox, but at present, WHO recommends the use of MVA-BN or LC16 vaccines, or the ACAM2000 vaccine when the others are unavailable.
The global body notes that the Mpox vaccines provide a level of protection against infection and severe disease, with results from vaccine effectiveness studies indicating that a good level of protection is provided against mpox following vaccination.
Further studies on the use of vaccines for mpox will provide additional information on the effectiveness of these vaccines in different settings.
