The mRNA monkeypox vaccine is doing well, but it may not be on the market

Monkeypox, a zoonotic disease first identified in monkeys used for research in 1958, is mainly transmitted
in animals.
Human monkeypox cases were first detected in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1970, and since then monkeypox has been endemic in several countries in Africa, including Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic
.
Cases of monkeypox outside Africa are usually contracted
by traveling to Africa.

However, monkeypox began to spread in Europe and North America in the first half of 2022, and on 23 July 2022, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), declared the monkeypox outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).

It is also the highest level of public health alert
issued by WHO to the world.

In May 2022, Moderna, the world's leading mRNA vaccine R&D company, announced that it would use its mRNA vaccine R&D platform to develop monkeypox mRNA
vaccines.
Moderna has said it has invested heavily in digitalization, robotics and machine learning to halve the time it takes to develop a new vaccine in just 20 days in the face of a new outbreak
.

Recently, Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said that the preclinical data of the company's mRNA monkeypox vaccine is "excellent", but don't expect to see this vaccine
on the market anytime soon.

Stéphane Bancel

This is also the first update
of Moderna's work since it disclosed its plans to develop an mRNA monkeypox vaccine in May last year.
Now, more than seven months later, although Moderna has yet to make a decision, the possibility of further development of the vaccine seems to be less and less
.

In May last year, when Moderna announced the development of an mRNA monkeypox vaccine, the monkeypox epidemic in the United States was just beginning, with an average of two new cases
reported per day.
Since then, new cases have increased rapidly, peaking at 457 new cases per day in early August
.
At that time, in response to a potentially rapid monkeypox outbreak, the United States purchased a large number of smallpox vaccine Jynneos, developed by Bavarian Nordic, which was approved by the US FDA in 2018 to prevent smallpox and monkeypox infection in high-risk adults over 18 years of age
.
This is the only non-replicating smallpox vaccine approved by the FDA and the only approved monkeypox vaccine
in the world.

Since then, the monkeypox outbreak in the United States has slowed rapidly, with the number of confirmed cases per day in the United States dropping to five as of 21 December 2022, with a cumulative related death toll of 20
.

The spread of monkeypox in European and American countries also highlights the global health gap, where monkeypox has been endemic for many years, where the case fatality rate is as high as 18.
6%, compared with less than 0.
1%
in the United States, where vaccines and treatments are available.