Months after the appearance of the epidemic of the monkeypox, Colombia will have vaccines to treat this disease. The Minister of Health, Carolina Corkconfirmed that Japan will donate the drugs to the country to apply them to the population most vulnerable to contagion.
The ministry announced that the State signed an agreement between the Ministry of Health and Social Protection of Colombia and the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare of Japan. It is a cooperation treaty for the donation of “thousands of doses of vaccines”.
Corchó assured that these drugs “would be useful for monkeypox. This agreement is accompanied by a diplomatic exchange note where the management of both foreign ministries was available.
However, the Vaccines have not yet arrived in Colombia, since the portfolio is in negotiations with Invima to allow the entry of these inoculations into the country. While the shipment with the drugs arrives, the ministry is applying measures to detect sick patients and isolate contact cases.
“The vaccine is a complementary action and this does not imply that the Ministry has stopped carrying out epidemiological surveillance and public health and prevention measures with people who assume risky practices against this disease”, explained Corcho.
For this epidemic, the World Health Organization has not yet recommended mass vaccination of the population, but rather the immunization measure is being applied to vulnerable groups. This disease has a different contagion pattern than covid-19.
“The vaccines that are recommended are vaccines that have trade names. We have two vaccines recommended by the WHO, one of them the replicating vaccine, which is the one just offered by the Japanese ambassador,” explained Carlos Álvarez, an epidemiologist designated by the WHO for clinical studies in Colombia.
The Colombian ambassador to Japan, Takasugi Masahiro, explained that the drugs are manufactured by the company Biologics. These have the approval of international health authorities for their application in the population.
Colombia and Brazil are two of the countries in the region that have presented the most cases of this disease, previously classified as “monkey pox””. Currently there are 37 patients hospitalized for this epidemic within the national territory.