More than 100,000 doses of monkeypox vaccine will be shipped to states in the next few days, and several million more will be ordered in the coming months, U.S. health officials said Friday.
They also acknowledged that vaccine supply has not kept pace with the demand seen in New York, California and elsewhere.
Read more: Monkeypox cases on the rise in Canada – has the country’s level of risk changed?
Officials have predicted that cases will continue to rise for at least several more weeks as the government tries to deal with a surprising international outbreak that is reporting hundreds of newly reported cases each day.
Some public health experts began to wonder if the epidemic had spread widely enough for monkeypox to become an established sexually transmitted disease.
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“Our whole job right now is to prevent that from happening,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Monkeypox is endemic in parts of Africa where humans have been infected through bites from rodents or small animals. It usually does not spread easily among people.
But more than 12,000 cases have been reported this year in countries that have historically not seen the disease. The infections are emerging in men who have had sex with men at gatherings in Europe, although health officials have stressed that anyone can catch the virus.
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As of Friday, more than 1,800 cases had been reported in the U.S., with hundreds of cases being added to the tally every day. Almost all are men, and the vast majority have had same-sex encounters, according to the CDC.
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Experts believe that the number of cases is underestimated.
Walensky said he expects cases to rise at least through August, in part because it can take three weeks from the time someone is infected to develop symptoms and be diagnosed.
The virus is mainly spread through skin-to-skin contact, but it can also be spread by touching bedding used by someone with monkeypox.
People with monkeypox may experience fever, body aches, chills, and fatigue. Many of the outbreak have developed pimple-like bumps on many parts of the body.
No one has died and the disease is relatively mild in many men. But for some, the lesions can be “extremely painful” and there is a risk of scarring, said Dr. Mary Foote, medical director of the New York City Health Department’s Office of Emergency Preparedness and Response.
Read more: Monkeypox cases in Canada rise 59% in 9 days
When the outbreak was first identified in May, US officials had only about 2,000 doses of a new two-dose monkeypox vaccine on hand.
Authorities have recommended that people who know or suspect they have been exposed to monkeypox be vaccinated in the previous two weeks, and vaccination clinics in some cities have been overwhelmed by demand. The government had distributed 156,000 doses nationally as of Thursday, including 100,000 this week. And it expects to begin shipping another 131,000 doses by Monday, said Dawn O’Connell of the US Department of Health and Human Services.
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There are also about 800,000 doses in Denmark that will soon be coming to the US. And the government this month announced orders for another 5 million doses, although most are not expected to arrive until next year.
The Jynneos vaccine has never been widely used in response to an outbreak like this, and the government will monitor how well it works, Walensky said.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Division is supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Science Education Division. AP is solely responsible for all content.
© 2022 The Canadian Press
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