Stock price of monkeypox vaccine maker INCREASES after WHO emergency declaration

08/21/2024 / By Ava Grace

The World Health Organization‘s (WHO) emergency declaration with regard to monkeypox is good news for Danish vaccine maker Bavarian Nordic, the company making the vaccine against the disease.

Stock prices for Bavarian Nordic jumped by 17 percent following the WHO’s declaration of a global public health emergency, according to Forbes. The 17 percent climb came after an earlier 12 percent rise in stock prices. U.S. shares for Bavarian Nordic, meanwhile, climbed by 33 percent.

Paul Chaplin, Bavarian Nordic’s CEO, told Bloomberg News that the company can provide 10 million doses of its vaccine to African countries over the next 18 months. “We have inventory and we have the capabilities. What we’re missing are the orders,” he said.

On Aug. 14, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared monkeypox a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) – the second time he did so after the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19). He justified the declaration by citing a reported 27,000 cases and more than 1,100 deaths in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) since the start of 2023, alongside a new monkeypox strain being detected in Sweden. (Related: WHO warns that new monkeypox strain is a global emergency.)

“The emergence of a new clade of [monkeypox], its rapid spread in eastern DRC and the reporting of cases in several neighboring countries are very worrying,” said Tedros. “On top of outbreaks of other [monkeypox] clades in [the] DRC and other countries in Africa, it’s clear that a coordinated international response is needed to stop these outbreaks and save lives.”

Tedros’ announcement followed an earlier declaration by the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) that monkeypox is a continent-wide public health emergency. In line with the declaration, the DRC – where the monkeypox outbreak is concentrated and most severe – has approved two vaccines: Bavarian Nordic’s Jynneos and the LC16 vaccine from Japan.

Monkeypox is another ploy to boost Big Pharma profits

According to a post by the Africa CDC, 10 million monkeypox vaccine doses are needed to control the outbreak. It also called for global support for its vaccination efforts.

While monkeypox has appeared to be a mild illness in the U.S., several lucrative government contracts in 2022 paid Bavarian Nordic and other vaccine makers hundreds of millions to stockpile the injections. That year, a monkeypox outbreak was recorded in 116 countries. It affected almost 100,000 people – primarily gay and bisexual men – and killed about 200.

On Aug. 8, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) – under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services – renewed its contract with Bavarian Nordic. The agency committed $156.8 million to manufacture and store Jynneos doses to partly replenish the inventory used to manufacture vaccines following the 2022 outbreak.

But some experts have expressed doubt over the PHEIC declaration, warning that it was a ploy to increase Big Pharma profits under the guise of addressing the monkeypox outbreak.

“The WHO is using the monkeypox outbreak in Africa to fast-track, under emergency use, two monkeypox vaccines,” said Dr. Kat Lindley, president of the Global Health Project. “We need to use discernment and evaluate risks and benefits before recommending any experimental new product to a vulnerable population.”

Dr. Meryl Nass also expressed similar skepticism on her Substack page, noting that there are “lots of unanswered questions” about monkeypox.

“If this generally mild viral illness is killing people, what is the cause of death? Does it only cause death in severely immune-suppressed patients? Are babies dying due to dehydration? Do we need to treat babies with fluids rather than give them a vaccine that was never tested in babies?”

Visit MonkeypoxPanic.com for similar stories.

Watch this clip about the Aug. 14 public health emergency announcement by the WHO.

This video is from the Thrivetime Show channel on Brighteon.com.