“The contract is there, it’s signed by me,” Karl Lauterbach told ARD on Sunday evening. He assumes that the vaccine will be available very soon. “Then we can also make vaccination concepts around the infected.” This will be prepared.
Around 40,000 doses could be delivered in June, with a further 200,000 doses later in the year. “I don’t think monkeypox really poses a threat in terms of a pandemic,” Lauterbach said. Nevertheless, they are “not a nice disease” and must be contained. “We don’t want it to get stuck either.”
The United States began distributing the monkeypox vaccine on Monday last week. It was a product from Bavarian Nordic. Spain announced its own order from the Danish manufacturer on Wednesday.
Monkeypox is a rare viral disease that can be transmitted to humans from animals, most likely rodents. Transmission from person to person is rare, but possible, especially in very close contact. Since the beginning of May, the virus has been spreading from person to person in Europe for the first time without an epidemiological connection to West or Central Africa. The first symptoms are fever, headache, muscle and back pain and swollen lymph nodes. Extensive skin rash is possible.
The viral disease actually occurs mainly in west and central Africa, making recent outbreaks unusual. The World Health Organization (WHO) sees no need for mass vaccinations.