EU provides humanitarian aid and experts to support the fight against mpox in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo

This support comes on top of the €1 million in humanitarian aid already announced this year by Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarčič to support smallpox prevention in refugee camps and among host populations around Goma.

The EU is already providing up to €100m in humanitarian aid in 2024 inside the DRC, covering multiple areas of assistance, such as food assistance and nutrition, shelter, protection, healthcare as well as measures to improve water, sanitation and hygiene conditions.

In addition, in cooperation with the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), two Commission epidemiologists are deployed in the DRC, which is the epicentre of this outbreak with 92% of the total cases in the Africa region.

This support follows the Commission’s agreement to purchase and donate 215,420 doses of MPOX vaccine to African countries, as an immediate response to the outbreak in Africa. The Commission’s Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA) also announced a €3.5m grant to improve access to MPOX diagnostics and sequencing in the region.

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