More than $800 million pledged for mpox response, African CDC says

DAKAR (Reuters) - Over $800 million has been pledged to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention for its fight against a surging mpox outbreak on the continent, the agency's head said on Thursday, adding that the amount was higher than expected.

It had previously promised to raise $600 million against mpox, which was declared a global health emergency in mid-August after a new strain began spreading from the Democratic Republic of Congo to neighbouring countries.

Africa has seen over 32,000 suspected mpox cases including 840 deaths so far this year, according to Africa CDC data.

Jean Kaseya, director general of Africa CDC, told reporters the agency received pledges for $814 million aimed at supporting its response plan. With the consideration of additional support, that number would increase to around $1 billion.

A big part of this funding will come from the U.S., which will be providing $500 million and 1 million vaccine doses to the response plan, he said.

Africa CDC will receive around $314 million from a mpox fund that has been created to receive contributions from member states and partners. This amount includes $129 million that was offered by the pandemic fund.

The agency has secured 4.3 million vaccine doses out of the more than 10 million needed to start to control this outbreak, Kaseya said.

Additional funds came from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness, which shared around $72 million for vaccine development and $145 million for expansion of manufacturing capacity in Africa, especially in Rwanda.

Kaseya told reporters that Africa CDC would have to modify its response plan as the outbreak continues to spread and now affects more countries.

"We'll redistribute this funding based on the discussions that we have with all partners to ensure that all affected countries and high risk countries are getting appropriate support against mpox," Kaseya said.

(Reporting by Anait Miridzhanian; Editing by Bill Berkrot)