Serum Institute of India to make mpox vaccine for Denmark's Bavarian Nordic

Nearly 1,200 people across Africa have died from mpox, according to African Union's health agency, which has warned that the epidemic was 'going out of control' without further action.

Denmark's Bavarian Nordic has entered in a licensing and manufacturing agreement for its mpox vaccine with Serum Institute.

As part of the agreement, Bavarian will transfer the technology to Serum Institute to supply the shots for the Indian market. Serum Institute will also carry out contract manufacturing on profit-sharing model for Bavarian Nordic to help expand global capacity, the Danish company said on December 16. Bavarian is among the very few manufacturers of an mpox vaccine, and has played a key role in the control of the disease during 2022.

The mpox virus is classified into two main clades, I and II, with each further subdivided into clade Ia, and newly identified clade Ib, along with clade IIa and IIb, responsible for the 2022 global outbreak.

As per the US Center for Disease Control (CDC), the ongoing global outbreak of clade II mpox has been detected in over 1 lakh cases across 122 total countries, including 115 countries where mpox was not previously reported. Only Cameroon in West Africa has identified cases of both clade I and clade II mpox, said CDC. No other country has reported cases due to both clades, with the exception of the recent travel-associated clade I cases in Canada, Germany, India, Sweden, Thailand, the United Kingdom, the United States, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Nearly 1,200 people across Africa have died from mpox, according to African Union's health agency, which has warned that the epidemic was 'going out of control' without further action.