Mpox (Monkeypox) Vaccine Maker’s Stock Price Soars After WHO Declares Global Public Health Emergency

Bavarian Nordic share prices jumped 17% in early trading today in Copenhagen, Forbes reported, after climbing 12% Wednesday when the WHO declared mpox a global health emergency following outbreaks in nearly a dozen African countries. Sweden today announced the first case outside Africa.

Stock prices for mpox vaccine maker Bavarian Nordic surged after the World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday declared mpox a global public health emergency.

The company’s share prices jumped 17% in early trading in Copenhagen today, Forbes reported, after climbing 12% yesterday when the WHO made its announcement. In the U.S., shares were up 33% this morning.

The WHO cited recent outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and neighboring nations in its declaration.

In the first known infection of its kind outside Africa, Sweden today confirmed a case of the highly contagious strain of mpox, according to NBC News. The WHO’s European regional office in Copenhagen said it was discussing with Sweden how best to manage the newly detected case, according to Medical Xpress.

This is the second time in two years the WHO has declared mpox a “public health emergency of international concern” PHEIC — pronounced “fake” — which is its highest form of an alert.

The announcement follows a declaration Tuesday by the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention that mpox is a continent-wide public health emergency.

Last week, the WHO triggered the process to grant Emergency Use Listing to two mpox vaccines, although it didn’t name which ones it would list. The agency also invited manufacturers of mpox vaccines to submit an “expression of interest” for Emergency Use Listing.

The DRC, where the outbreak is concentrated and most severe, has approved two vaccines — Japan’s LC16 and Bavarian Nordic’s Jynneos, which is also marketed as Imvamune and Imvanex.

avarian Nordic is one of the few companies in the world with an already-approved mpox vaccine that is also available in large quantities. Other contenders, such as Emergent BioSolutions’ ACAM2000have been available under special investigational protocols. Others, like Tonix Pharmaceuticals, have experimental shots that are in earlier stages of development.

LC16 is a smallpox vaccine licensed in 1980 in Japan and approved in July 2022 for mpox. It isn’t commercially available, but there are large supplies in Japan’s national stockpile, the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy reported. Like Jynneos, it is a third-generation mpox vaccine that uses attenuated virus strains.

Jynneos and ACAM2000 can cause myocarditis, pericarditis and other serious side effects at high rates, Dr. Meryl Nass told The Defender last week, as the labels for both drugs indicate.

The Japanese LC16 vaccine also has been linked to encephalitis, Nass reported on her Substack today.

“The WHO is using the monkeypox outbreak in Africa to fast-track, under emergency use, two monkeypox vaccines,” Dr. Kat Lindley, a senior fellow at FLCCC Family Medicine and president of the Global Health Project told The Defender.

“We need to use discernment and evaluate risks and benefits before recommending any experimental new product to a vulnerable population,” she said.

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