The European Medicines Agency announced, on Friday, that it has approved the use of an anti-smallpox vaccine to prevent monkeypox, which the World Health Organization may decide to classify the high number of infections as a health emergency of international concern.
The approval of the European Medicines Agency comes at a time when the world is awaiting the conclusions of a meeting held Thursday by the World Health Organization committee of experts concerned with studying the seriousness of the high number of monkeypox infections.
On Thursday, the Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, expressed his “concern” about this rise.
The Imvanex vaccine, developed by the Danish Bavarian Nordic company, has been approved for use in the European Union since 2013 to prevent smallpox.
Its use to combat monkeypox has been banned because of the similarity between this virus and the smallpox virus.
The World Health Organization’s emergency committee will be tasked with evaluating epidemiological indicators while the situation has worsened in recent weeks, with more than 15,300 injuries recorded in 71 countries, according to figures issued by the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
At the first meeting on June 23, the majority of experts recommended that the WHO not declare a health emergency of international concern.
