The U.S. will provide 50,000 monkeypox vaccine doses specifically for giant events with high attendance by gay and bisexual men in an effort to raised reach the community most in danger at once, health officials said Thursday.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said communities hosting Pride and other events can order additional shots to supply vaccinations on-site. The CDC is asking jurisdictions that order more vaccine for these events to supply a plan on how they’ll educate attendees in regards to the risk aspects related to monkeypox, Walensky said.
The education outreach includes recommendations on safer sex, including temporarily limiting sexual partners throughout the current outbreak, in response to the CDC director. Monkeypox is primarily spreading through close contact during sex at once.
“I need to emphasise that while we’re offering the vaccine at these events to those at high risk, this can be a two-dose vaccine series and receiving the vaccine at these events won’t provide protection on the event itself,” Walensky said. It’s particularly vital to avoid behavior that increases the chance of infection between the primary and second dose of the vaccine, she said.
The U.S. is deploying the Jynneos vaccine, made by the Danish biotech company Bavarian Nordic, to immunize people against monkeypox. The vaccine is run in two doses given 28 days apart. It takes two weeks after the second dose to provide the utmost immune response to guard against the virus.
The U.S. has delivered greater than 1 million doses of the monkeypox vaccine across the country for the reason that outbreak began in May, in response to the Health and Human Services Department. The federal government will make one other 1.8 million doses available for states and other local jurisdictions to order on Monday.
The U.S. has also delivered 22,000 courses of the antiviral treatment tecovirimat up to now and can make one other 50,000 courses available for state and native jurisdictions to order next week, in response to HHS.
The U.S. has reported greater than 13,500 cases of monkeypox across 49 states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico, in response to the CDC. The overwhelming majority of infections, 98%, are in men and 93% of patients who provided their gender and up to date sexual history were men who’ve sex with men. The median age of patients is 35 years old.
The outbreak is disproportionately impacting Black and Hispanic communities. Nearly 35% of monkeypox patients are white, 33% are Hispanic and 28% are Black, in response to CDC data. Whites make up about 59% of the U.S. population while Blacks and Hispanics account for 13% and 19%, respectively. Public health officials are tailoring outreach for upcoming events attended primarily by Black and Hispanic individuals, said Demetre Daskalakis, the White House deputy monkeypox response coordinator.
Walensky said the CDC is working closely with local officials ahead of Atlanta Black Pride, which begins Aug. 31, and Southern Decadence in Recent Orleans, which starts Sept. 1.
“Specifically we’re asking for plans for the way the education will occur, how we will do more outreach in some cases, whether we will make testing available, how we will make vaccine available,” Walensky said.
The Food and Drug Administration last week authorized administering the Jynneos vaccine through intradermal injection, or between the layers of the skin. The vaccine was originally approved for subcutaneous injection, or beneath the skin.
The choice to permit intradermal injections has significantly expanded the limited vaccine supply because this approach to administration uses a fifth of the traditional dose volume. Which means five doses can now be extracted from each vaccine vial, in response to Robert Fenton, the White House monkeypox response coordinator.
Bavarian Nordic, the manufacturer, has expressed some concerns about intradermal injections. CEO Paul Chaplin told HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra and FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf in a letter last week that Bavarian Nordic was anxious about limited safety data on the strategy. The letter was first reported by The Washington Post.
Califf and Dr. Peter Marks, head of the FDA’s vaccine division, said intradermal injections produced an analogous immune response to the subcutaneous method in a study sponsored by the U.S. government. The intradermal method did lead to more redness, itchiness and swelling on the injection site, however the unwanted side effects were manageable and other people actually had less pain from the shot, the FDA officials told Bavarian Nordic in a letter.
There is proscribed data on the vaccine’s real-world effectiveness. WHO officials said earlier this week there are reports of breakthrough cases during which individuals who received the shots after exposure to the virus are still falling in poor health in addition to individuals becoming infected after receiving the vaccine as a preventative measure.
“Now we have known from the start that this vaccine wouldn’t be a silver bullet, that it will not meet all of the expectations which might be being placed on it, and that we haven’t got firm efficacy data or effectiveness data on this context,” Dr. Rosamund Lewis, the WHO’s lead monkeypox expert, told reporters Wednesday.
The monkeypox vaccine might be administered after exposure to cut back the chance of severe disease or before exposure to cut back the chance of infection.
Walensky said last week that the CDC is launching studies to watch the shots real-world effectiveness at stopping disease. She said Thursday the CDC expects the shots will provide protection with vaccine handiest two weeks after the second dose.
