US may face shortage of monkeypox vaccines if outbreak worsens
The US may face a shortage of Monkeypox vaccines for at-risk Americans if cases continue to rise, even though US officials celebrated the arrival of nearly 800,000 monkeypox vaccines earlier in the week.
However, the seemingly large quantity of vaccines is still not sufficient to cover those at greatest risk of contracting the virus, and more doses will not arrive until next October, the Washington Post daily reported Saturday.
According to the report, even with the newly-arrived doses, the US only has enough on hand to vaccinate just one-third of the “roughly 1.6 million gay and bisexual men who are considered at high-risk.”
The US likely needs 3.2 million doses to cover the at-risk population, said the director of the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Stephen Morrison, in a recent podcast, noting, however, that there won't even be 2 million doses available by the end of 2022.
There is also confusion about who needs a vaccine and whether a vaccine exists at all, the report further states.
"The United States must continue to ramp up vaccine supply and must move swiftly to implement a comprehensive distribution approach to significantly increase equitable access to vaccines," said Daniel McQuillen, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America as quoted in a report by the US-based Axios news outlet.
The report further pointed out that the Biden administration “is hoping to stay ahead of the outbreak by shipping additional vaccine doses to the states.”
If cases surge and demand for more vaccines rises, Biden may need to request more funds from Congress or declare a public health emergency, according to the report.
This is while critics have already censured federal officials for their slow response to the outbreak on the heels of the coronavirus pandemic, US news outlets further reported.
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