vaccine
© QINQIE99/ShutterstockThe majority of mpox cases are found in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Burundi, Congo and Kenya.
France has updated its vaccination recommendations in the face of a rise in mpox cases in Central Africa linked to the clade I and clade Ib variants, despite the low risk of the virus being introduced into the country.

On Tuesday (September 3), the Direction Générale de la Santé (DGS) of the French Ministry of Labour, Health and Solidarity presented France's new vaccination strategy in response to the increase in mpox cases in Central Africa.

On 14 August, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) in response to the emergence in Africa of a new variant of the mpox virus: clade Ib.

The majority of clade 1b mpox cases are found in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), with cases confirmed in neighbouring countries, including Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda.

In France, the risk of a spread of clade I and Ib is low, assured the DGS, though they did not rule out the appearance of "sporadic" cases in the coming weeks and months.

This summer, the French Ministry of Health called on the French National Authority for Health (HAS) to update its vaccine recommendations, which were published on Monday (September 2).

HAS's recommendations include implementing the strategy devised in 2022, during the previous mpox epidemic caused by the clade II variant. That variant remains in circulation in France, with 126 cases being detected since the beginning of the year.

French authorities are advising people at risk to be vaccinated, and those already vaccinated in 2022 to receive a booster dose. People who have already contracted the virus do not need to be vaccinated.

Higher risk groups include men who have sex with men, transgender people with multiple sexual partners, and sex workers.

The aim of this vaccination strategy is threefold, explain the DGS: to reduce the risk of propagation of clade I, to reduce or even eliminate the circulation of clade II, and to raise the level of long-term immunity.

The DGS also assured that stocks of the vaccine against the virus - Imvanex, produced by the Danish pharmaceutical laboratory Bavarian Nordic - were "amply sufficient."

For its part, the European Centre for Disease Control (ECDC), in its latest assessment, considers the risk of clade I spreading to Europe to be low. To date, one case has been detected in Sweden.