Last weekend hundreds of compatriots went to the French Lille. They were given a free vaccine against monkey pox. Why are there more vaccines in neighboring countries than here? That question was presented to the Minister of Health Frank Vandenbroucke (Vooruit) on Wednesday during a press conference about monkey pox. “An important question,” said the minister. “We’ll have to look into that within the government.”
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In fact, Belgium has had a ‘huge stock’ of vaccines that work against the monkeypox virus for years, even though they are second-generation vaccines against the traditional – much more deadly – smallpox. According to experts, the health disadvantages of these vaccines are too great to be used preventively, for example for high-risk contacts.
A third-generation vaccine has been on the European market since 2013, with fewer side effects. France and the Netherlands already bought them, even before the monkey pox crisis broke out. How much, that is military secret in France. After all, the purchase was made as a measure in the event that regular smallpox would be used as a biological weapon. The Netherlands does give a number: about 70,000 vaccines.
After the outbreak of the monkeypox crisis, our country ordered more than 33,000 doses. Of these, Belgium only has 3,240 available, and 339 have already been placed. The remaining 30,000 doses should be delivered in the fourth quarter of this year. Faster is difficult, because the Danish manufacturer Bavarian Nordic cannot just keep up with the sudden high demand. The European Commission ordered 110,000 doses.
The question remains why Belgium did not buy third-generation vaccines earlier. ‘It is rather a coincidence that some countries, such as France and the Netherlands, have already switched to the new vaccine,’ says virologist Marc Van Ranst. ‘It is nowhere high on the agenda, because the risk of bioterror with smallpox is extremely small. Only in a lab in the United States and in Russia is the smallpox virus in the freezer. Even so, we were now talking about a million-dollar waste of vaccines for a disease that’s already gone.’
Vandenbroucke’s predecessor, Maggie De Block (Open VLD), says that she has never received any information about the new vaccine and that a purchase has never been discussed.
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