WEDNESDAY, June 29, 2022 (HealthDay News) – The United States is deploying an improved national vaccination strategy to counter the continued spread of monkeypox, federal public health officials announced Tuesday in a House briefing White.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is rapidly expanding access to hundreds of thousands of doses of the Jynneos vaccine, targeted at smallpox and its viral cousin, the smallpox monkey. Vaccine doses will be used to protect those Americans who are considered most at risk for contracting the virus, federal officials said.
At these times, those most at risk include anyone who has had close physical contact or sexual contact with a person with a known case of monkeypox. Also at high risk are gay and bisexual men who “have recently had multiple sexual partners in a place where smallpox was known to be present or in an area where smallpox is spreading,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. US Disease Prevention in a statement.
The monkeypox test capacity is also being expanded across the country, health officials said. The CDC began sending tests to five commercial lab companies across the country, to make sure the tests are available to all communities, White House briefing experts said.
“Post-exposure vaccination or the use of vaccines for‘ post-exposure prophylaxis ’aims to reduce the risk of becoming infected with the virus and then getting sick,” explained CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, MD, at the briefing. “Vaccination should occur within two weeks of a possible exposure, and the sooner you can be vaccinated after exposure, the better.”
Doses of the Jynneos vaccine will be distributed to areas with the most transmission and need, through a tiered allocation system, officials said. The federal government is immediately making 56,000 doses of the vaccine available and a further 240,000 doses will be available in the coming weeks. More than 750,000 additional doses will be available during the summer and an additional 500,000 doses will be released during the fall. In all, the U.S. expects to release 1.6 million doses of the Jynneos vaccine this year, officials said.
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