Mpox Vaccine Shortfall - Jynneos (MVA-BN) Still Priced at a Premium
June 9, 2025
As Africa’s mpox outbreak escalates, vaccine supply remains dangerously inadequate. On June 5, 2025, Africa CDC’s Dr. Ngashi Ngongo flagged Bavarian Nordic’s high price for MVA-BN (Jynneos) as a key barrier. Despite 1.3 million doses allocated, over 6 million are still needed. UNICEF lacks funding to procure its remaining doses, and U.S.-pledged supplies face delays due to past administrative disruptions. With cases soaring in countries like Sierra Leone and DRC, continued supply scarcity—driven by unaffordable pricing—jeopardizes outbreak control. Bavarian Nordic must urgently lower MVA-BN’s price and enable technology transfer to ensure equitable access and protect global health.
On June 5, 2025, Dr. Ngashi Ngongo of the Africa CDC identified a critical barrier in Africa’s mpox emergency response: the unaffordable cost of Bavarian Nordic’s MVA-BN vaccine (marketed as Jynneos). Despite Africa facing the majority of global mpox cases—especially in hotspots like the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sierra Leone—access to vaccines remains heavily constrained. Although Africa needs 6.4 million doses to mount an adequate response, only 720,000 have been administered across the continent, and UNICEF is unable to secure the remaining 350,000 doses from its supply agreement due to budget shortfalls.
This inequity is not a matter of global shortage. Bavarian Nordic has claimed it can supply up to 13 million doses by the end of 2025. Yet the vaccine’s $65-per-dose price tag—one of the highest UNICEF pays for any vaccine—has priced out the very countries most affected by the outbreak. The U.S. reportedly paid less per dose, raising troubling questions about pricing transparency and fairness. Meanwhile, vaccine donations from the U.S. remain delayed due to former administrative dismantling of global aid infrastructure.
This artificially constrained supply undermines vaccine ambition and puts lives at risk. For context, at a similar point during the U.S. mpox outbreak in 2022, the U.S. alone had access to nearly six times more doses than Africa does now—despite the African region facing 69 times more confirmed cases.
As the World Health Organization (WHO) emphasizes, vaccine manufacturers must revisit their pricing and access policies. Bavarian Nordic must not only lower MVA-BN’s price and increase its availability to UNICEF but also share its manufacturing technology. The world cannot afford to let a price tag dictate the trajectory of an epidemic—especially not when lives, equity, and global security hang in the balance.