Kinshasa, Oct 5 (IANS): The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) will launch its first phase of the vaccination campaign on Saturday, DRC Health Minister Roger Kamba announced.

The vaccination, initially scheduled for Wednesday, will start from Goma, the capital of North Kivu Province, where the most sexually transmissible clade 2b of the virus is rampant, reports Xinhua news agency.

It will soon reach South Kivu, the province most affected by the disease, said the minister, revealing that approximately 265,000 doses of vaccine are available.

"We take into account the doses we have and the strategy taken, that is to say, first vaccinate the most affected areas. That is why it will start in the East," he explained, without elaborating on the postponement of the campaign.

Kamba said that given the number of doses available, the current phase of vaccination primarily involves adults. The country plans to vaccinate 2.5 million people with 3.5 million doses of vaccine.

"We will try to vaccinate adults first because the vaccine we received is already approved for adults. Research suggests that it can also be used in children under 17, but for now, given the number of doses we have, we will start with adults," he said.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the DRC, the epicentre of the ongoing mpox outbreak, accounts for about 90 per cent of all cases of mpox recorded in the African region.

The WHO declared mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, a public health emergency of international concern in August after an initial announcement in July 2022, warning of its potential for increased global transmission. The current outbreak has been exacerbated by the emergence of clade 1b, a new, more dangerous, and deadly variant with a much higher mortality rate than previous strains.

The WHO said that the new variant was identified in South Kivu and is estimated to have emerged around mid-September 2023. Clade 1b has been reported in several countries in Central Africa and outside Africa.