Danish biotech company Bavarian Nordic said on Monday that the European Commission has given permission to sell its Imvanex vaccine to protect against monkeypox, as recommended last week by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), Reuters reported. This approval came just one day after the World Health Organization declared monkeypox a global health emergency. Bavarian's vaccine, the only one approved to prevent monkeypox in the U.S. and Canada, has so far only been used in the EU to treat smallpox. However, the company supplied the vaccine to several EU countries during the current monkeypox outbreak for so-called "off-target" use. Approval is valid in all European Union member states, as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, Bavarian Nordic said in a statement. The development of Imvanex was made possible by a significant investment by the U.S. government over the past two decades, the company added.