Spain to donate 500,000 mpox vaccine doses to combat outbreak in Africa

MADRID (Reuters) -Spain will donate 500,000 doses of the mpox vaccine, or 20% of its stockpile, to combat an outbreak of the disease in Africa, the Health Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

It added that the country had urged the European Commission to propose that all EU member states donate 20% of their respective stock of the vaccine.

"It makes no sense to stockpile vaccines where there is no problem, and now is the time to prove it," the ministry said. Spain's donation consists of 100,000 vials, enough to provide 500,000 doses.

The World Health Organization has declared mpox a global public health emergency, after an outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo spread to neighbouring countries and a new form of the virus, clade Ib, triggered concerns about the speed of transmission.

Last week, Health Minister Monica Garcia said Spain had "a very good stock" of the vaccines. Spain has registered 268 cases of the old strain so far this year, well below 7,500 cases recorded in a global outbreak of 2022. About 40,000 people have taken the vaccine so far.

(Reporting by Emma Pinedo, editing by Andrei Khalip)