The EMA recommends a monkeypox vaccine

The vaccine is manufactured by the North Bavarian Danish company and has been approved for use against smallpox since 2013.

The new EMA recommendation is based on animal studies where the vaccine has been shown to provide protection against monkeypox as well, which is to be expected according to vaccine researcher Matti Sällberg at the Karolinska Institute.

Even if it wasn’t developed against monkeypox, we know the vaccine still has an effect. Monkeypox, smallpox, and cowpox all come from the same family of viruses and are closely related. There are also viruses that change very little. Therefore, the immune system you get from the smallpox vaccine is also good against monkeypox.

Is it common to develop vaccines against one virus and use them against another virus?

– this happens. An example of this is the influenza vaccine. It’s not the same as the influenza virus that circulates each year, and a vaccine is put together each year that is as similar as possible to the virus you think will circulate. In other words, it’s not quite the same virus in the vaccine as what circulates next, but it’s as similar as possible.

After EMA’s recommendation It is up to the EU Commission to decide on formal approval. The vaccine has already been given the green light for use in the United States.

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