A worldwide shortage in the supply of a vaccine used to protect against serious monkeypox disease has spurred the United States to negotiate new terms with the sole manufacturer, Bavarian Nordic.
The White House Monkeypox Response Team told reporters that for its next order, 2.5 million doses, the United States has asked Bavarian Nordic to work with a contract manufacturer or partner with a large pharmaceutical company.
A possible deal is in the works with Michigan-based Grand River Asceptic Manufacturing.
“As you know, they are a small manufacturer. They have an active line in the Copenhagen area that we rely on to fill and finish 2.5 million doses. But when we asked them to fill and finish these 2 .5 million. , we required them to work with a national US contract manufacturing organization,” said Dawn O’Connell, assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
The U.S. is also helping the company in other ways, including working with big pharmaceutical companies to potentially partner with Bavarian Nordic.
The Danish company’s vaccine was originally developed to protect against smallpox, and data from the animal model is being used to support its use as a vaccine against smallpox, as the disease is in the same family than smallpox
That’s why CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky emphasized the limited data and the need to monitor and study vaccine effectiveness in real time.
“We don’t know yet how well this vaccine will work in this outbreak,” Walensky said.
Currently, the vaccine is expected to only protect against severe disease and death, similar to the COVID vaccines.
An employee of the Bavarian Nordic vaccine company shows an image of a vaccine virus on a screen in a company laboratory in Martinsried, near Munich, Germany, May 24, 2022. The company, based in Denmark, it is the only one in the world. have the approval of a smallpox vaccine called Jynneos in the US and Imvanex in Europe, which is also effective against monkeypox. REUTERS/Lukas Barth
But still, the federal government hopes to vaccinate as many high-risk people, primarily men who have sex with men (MSM), in a short period of time. The CDC announced a pilot program to have the vaccine, as well as the TPOXX treatment, available at major events where LGBTQ+ people are likely to attend.
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So far, many of the cases have been reported after recent sexual contact between men, but there have also been reports of pregnant women and skin-to-skin contact.
As of August 17, more than 13,500 cases of monkeypox have been reported in the US, including territories, and more than 39,000 cases worldwide in 94 countries. The US accounts for the majority of cases and, according to the White House team, is the country with the most vaccine doses available.
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