it's a much anticipated vaccine which is finally on its way to the Democratic Republic of Congo The Who announced the imminent deployment of the first batch of empo doses drc's Ministry of Health Plans to begin deploying the vaccines this weekend who is working with our partners to coordinate vaccine demands share information on those doses available and ensure those doses are directed to areas where they can contribute to controlling the outbreak the empo vaccine was donated by the European Union to the Democratic Republic of Congo with over 19,000 cases and more than 650 deaths reported since the beginning of the year it is the hardest hit country on the African continent where in total 16 countries have reported an empo outbreak previously known as monkey pox this infectious disease was discovered in 1958 it is transmitted to humans by infected animals but can be passed from Human to human through close physical contact the disease causes symptoms like a fever muscle pains and painful skin lesions the ferality rate ranges from 1 to 11% the wh which had declared an emergency over the spread of an empo strain 2 years ago had lifted the alert in 2023 but the Resurgence of the virus fueled by the new more contagious and deadlier strain clad 1B prompted the who to activate its highest level of alert last month other countries like Spain have pledged to send as many as 500,000 Doses and France and Germany 100,000 each