The European Union plans to buy around 110,000 doses of monkeypox vaccine. She will sign the agreement later today, said EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides on Tuesday on the sidelines of the EU ministerial meeting in Luxembourg. The first cans should be delivered to the EU countries as early as the end of June. There are currently 900 cases of monkeypox in the EU and around 1,400 worldwide, said Kyriakides.

The number of monkeypox records recorded by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) in Germany has risen to more than 200. The RKI gave the number of patients on its website on Tuesday as exactly 229, after around 190 the day before. According to the institute, eleven federal states have reported those affected by the viral disease. There are particularly many in Berlin, where 142 cases were registered as of Monday.

In Germany, the Standing Vaccination Commission recommended monkeypox vaccination for certain risk groups and people who had close contact with infected people last week. As Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) recently announced, the vaccine should be available from June 15th.

Stiko sees an increased risk of infection in men who have same-sex sexual contact with changing partners. Although everyone can be infected through close physical contact, the cases in Germany have “so far only occurred among men in the MSM community,” wrote the Stiko. This group should therefore be given special protection. MSM stands for “men who have sex with men”.