The Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM) in Antwerp is receiving an additional €2 million in funding from the Belgian Directorate-General for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid (DGD) to strengthen research and control efforts against the mpox virus (pictured) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
A new variant of the mpox virus, Clade Ib, recently emerged in several African countries and was detected outside Africa for the first time on 15 August 2024, in Sweden, raising fears of global spread.
With the new resources, ITM and the Congolese National Institute of Biomedical Research (INRB) can launch a vaccination campaign in the hardest-hit areas. ITM will also study the effectiveness of the vaccine against the new variant. Both institutes have decades of expertise and have been working together since 2020 on the Mpox, Biology, Outcome, Transmission, and Epidemiology (MBOTE) project.
Insights from local outbreaks are crucial to protecting other regions. owing to globalisation and climate change, outbreaks are increasingly less confined to local areas, allowing diseases to spread globally, as seen during the 2022 mpox outbreak. At that time, ITM utilised its years of mpox research expertise to help control the outbreak in Belgium.
“This investment underscores the importance of international cooperation in addressing global health challenges,” says outgoing Minister for Development Cooperation, Frank Vandenbroucke. “By strengthening local expertise and international collaboration, we can not only improve the health situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo but also protect Belgium and the rest of the world.”