Aegis Sciences Corporation microbiologists conduct tests for COVID-19 and monkeypox at its facility in Nashville, Tennessee, on Thursday. ANADOLU AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES US President Joe Biden’s administration on Thursday declared the country’s monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency, but many health experts fear it may be too late to contain the spread of infections. Criticism of the White House’s response to the outbreak has grown, with experts saying authorities have been slow to distribute treatments and vaccines. The White House statement signals that the monkeypox virus is now a significant threat to citizens. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra is considering a second declaration that would authorize federal officials to rush medical countermeasures, such as other potential treatments and vaccines, without going through comprehensive federal reviews. That would also allow more flexibility in how the current vaccine supply is administered, Becerra said. About 6,600 monkeypox infections have been reported in the United States, a number that has skyrocketed in recent weeks. Lawrence Gostin, a public health law expert at Georgetown University, said the declaration of a health emergency “signals the seriousness and purpose of the US government and sounds a global alarm.” But he told The Associated Press that action was overdue. Gostin said the government was being too cautious and should have declared a state of emergency earlier across the country. On July 23, the World Health Organization declared a global health emergency due to the outbreak, with cases in more than 70 countries. California, Illinois, and New York have made statements recently, as have New York, San Francisco, and San Diego County. Since doctors diagnosed the first case in the US on May 27, the virus has been spreading rapidly across the country, with the highest per capita rates reported in Washington, New York and Georgia. More than 99 percent of infections are among men who have sex with men. The virus is mainly transmitted during close physical contact. So far, no deaths from the disease have been reported in the US. The country now has the highest number of cases among non-endemic countries, and the number is expected to rise as surveillance and testing improve. Monkey pox is endemic in areas of Africa where humans are infected by bites from rodents or small animals. Classification as endemic means that a disease has a continuous presence in a population, but does not affect an alarmingly large number of people, as is usually seen in a pandemic. “Rarely fatal” On its website, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says of the virus: “Monkeypox virus is part of the same family of viruses as smallpox virus, the virus that causes smallpox. The symptoms of smallpox are similar to the symptoms of smallpox, but milder and monkeypox is rarely fatal. Chickenpox is not related to chickenpox.” There is growing concern that the US may have missed an opportunity to contain the monkeypox virus. Some public health experts have pointed the finger at the administration for its slowness in releasing vaccines and treatments. “The window to contain monkeypox is closing fast,” Gostin warned in an interview with CNN late last month. He had asked the US to declare a public health emergency and make more doses of vaccines available. “I think it’s still possible to contain it, but it’s also just as likely to become endemic in the United States,” he said. Supplies of a monkeypox vaccine called Jynneos have been limited even as demand rises. The administration has been criticized for moving too slowly to expand the number of doses. Federal officials have identified about 1.6 million people at highest risk for monkeypox, but the U.S. has received enough doses of Jynneos to fully cover only about 550,000 people. The vaccine shortage was caused in part because the Department of Health and Human Services failed early on to request that the large stockpiles of the vaccine it already had for distribution be bottled, the New York Times reported, citing multiple unnamed administration officials with knowledge of the matter. . The government is now distributing about 1.1 million doses of vaccine, less than a third of the 3.5 million that health officials now estimate are needed to fight the outbreak. It does not expect the next delivery, of 500,000 doses, until October.
