A senior public health official acknowledged on Friday that the United States, which expects an increase in cases of monkeypox in the coming weeks, currently does not have enough vaccine doses to meet demand. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the main federal public health agency in the country, stated, “I want to acknowledge that the demand for vaccines from regions is currently higher than our available supply, and we know this is frustrating.” She added during a press conference, “We do not yet have all the vaccines that we wish to have,” anticipating “an increase in cases in the coming weeks.”
Concerns are particularly rising in New York, the center of the virus's spread, where nearly 390 cases have been reported, bringing the total in the United States to 1,470 cases. This week, health services in New York had to apologize after a significant number of failures occurred on the website designated for vaccine appointments. Ashwin Vasan, the city’s health commissioner, stated on Thursday, “The supply of vaccines is extremely limited across the country, especially here in New York.”
At the beginning of the outbreak in May, authorities had only 2,000 doses of the “Jynneos” vaccine, the only one specifically approved for monkeypox. Since then, 156,000 doses have been distributed nationwide, with a little over 130,000 added to the national strategic reserve and set to begin distribution starting Monday. Vaccines will no longer be allocated fairly among various U.S. states but will prioritize the most affected areas, with Walensky noting, “I expect there will be many supplies for New York City” in this new batch.
Meanwhile, there were still 786,000 doses in Denmark awaiting inspection by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Peter Marks from the FDA indicated that inspections have taken place and “we informed the manufacturer (Bavarian Nordic) that it can start shipping” these doses. The U.S. Department of Health announced on Friday that it requested an additional 2.5 million doses of the “Jynneos” vaccine, which will arrive in 2023.
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced that its monkeypox emergency committee will meet next Thursday to determine the measures to be taken in response to the current outbreak of the disease. The committee will assess the severity of the increase in monkeypox cases and whether it will classify it as a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern,” the highest alert level for the organization. This meeting will be the second for the committee after it decided against raising the alert level in its first meeting on June 23. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has repeatedly expressed concern about the outbreak of the disease outside endemic countries and urged member states to take appropriate measures to curb the spread.
