The EU Commission has secured 10,000 doses of a drug to treat monkeypox. "The declining trend in cases of monkeypox in the EU is encouraging, but does not mean that the threat is over," said EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides in Brussels on Monday.

The drug should therefore help to meet the immediate needs of EU countries in addition to the more than 330,000 doses of monkeypox vaccine that the EU has already secured, said the Commissioner. The stocks of the drug with the active ingredient Tecovirimat should be available to the EU countries in case of urgent need.

According to the EU health authority ECDC, as of September 20, there were 19,832 confirmed cases of monkeypox in the 27 EU countries as well as in Norway and Iceland.