LONDON, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Vaccines to help curb an

escalating mpox outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo and

neighbouring countries may still not reach the central African

country for months even as the World Health Organization

considers following Africa's top public health agency in

declaring the outbreak an emergency.

On Tuesday, Africa Centres for Disease Control and

Prevention declared a public health emergency of continental

concern for the first time ever, and on Wednesday, a WHO-led

panel meets to decide if it represents a global threat.

But while experts hoped the meetings would galvanise action

worldwide, many obstacles remain, including limited vaccine

supply, funding and competing disease outbreaks.

"It is important to declare an emergency because the disease

is spreading," said Jean-Jacques Muyembe-Tamfum, head of Congo's

Institut National pour la Recherche Biomedicale (INRB). He said

he hoped any declaration would help provide more funding for

surveillance as well as supporting access to vaccines in Congo.

But he acknowledged the road ahead was not easy in a huge

country where health facilities and humanitarian funds are

already stretched by conflict and outbreaks of diseases like

measles and cholera.

"If the big declarations remain just words, it won't make

any material difference," said Emmanuel Nakoune, an mpox expert

at the Institut Pasteur de Bangui in Central African Republic.

Africa CDC said last week it had been granted $10.4 million

in emergency funding from the Africa Union for its mpox

response, and its director general Jean Kaseya said on Tuesday

there was a clear plan to secure 3 million doses of vaccine this

year, without elaborating further.

However, sources involved in planning a vaccination roll-out

in Congo said only 65,000 doses were likely to be available in

the short-term, and campaigns were unlikely to begin before

October at the earliest.

There have been more than 15,000 suspected cases of mpox in

Africa this year and 461 deaths, mainly among children in Congo,

according to Africa CDC. The viral infection is usually mild but

can kill, and causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions.

A new offshoot of the virus has caused outbreaks in refugee

camps in the east of Congo this year, and spread to Uganda,

Burundi, Rwanda and Kenya for the first time.

Ivory Coast and South Africa are also experiencing outbreaks

linked to a different strain of the virus, which spread globally

in 2022, largely among men who have sex with men. This outbreak

prompted WHO to declare a global emergency before ending it 10

months later.

Then, two vaccines were used - Bavarian Nordic's ( BVNKF ) Jynneos,

and LC16, made by KM Biologics. Outside clinical trials, neither

has ever been available in Congo or across Africa, where the

disease has been endemic for decades. Only LC16 is approved for

use in children.

Congo's regulators approved the use of the vaccines

domestically in June, but the government is yet to officially

request any from either the manufacturers or governments like

the United States looking to make donations through the global

vaccine group, Gavi.