The virus was eradicated worldwide in 1980, but because it is such a potent killer, experts still considered the smallpox virus to be a serious threat for use as a weapon.
For at least 12,000 years, it decimated populations and felled entire empires, killing about a third of the people it infected.
Let’s back up: Until the late 1900s, smallpox was a global scourge. There are currently two vaccines for use against monkeypox in the US, but it’s not because of monkeypox that we have them. What vaccines are available to prevent monkeypox, and how do they work? Here’s what you need to know about the vaccine, whether you’re considering getting one yourself or just trying to make sense of it all. The monkeypox landscape is changing fast. The emergency declaration also aims to improve access to testing and treatment nationwide. However, approximately 1.6 million people are thought to be at high risk of infection.Īnother 150,000 Jynneos doses are expected to arrive in the US in September - ahead of their scheduled November delivery - and officials are exploring a method of administering the vaccine that would allow providers to use a single-dose vial to administer up to five separate doses. That’s about half of the 1.1 million total doses that have been allocated to states, enough to provide about 550,000 people with the recommended two doses. The move, which comes after the World Health Organization declared an international emergency, is intended to increase vaccine access.Īs of August 4, the government had shipped states more than 602,000 doses of the Jynneos vaccine, the preferred vaccine for monkeypox in the US. On August 4, US Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra declared the monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency. But demand has greatly outpaced supply, especially in American settings, leading to confusion and frustration among people seeking vaccination. In June, community-based vaccination clinics began popping up in Canada, Europe, and the US. But in recent weeks, they’ve been taking a more expansive approach to vaccination, offering it to people at risk for monkeypox exposure - even if they haven’t had contact with a confirmed case. Public health authorities have been administering vaccines to close contacts of monkeypox cases since the early days of the outbreak. While the version of the virus causing the current outbreak is rarely lethal, its lesions can be extremely painful and may leave scars.
Monkeypox generally causes several days of flu-like illness and lymph node swelling followed by a blister- or pimple-like rash. Behavioral strategies are critical for preventing monkeypox transmission - check out the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) refreshingly straightforward advice about cleaning fetish gear! - but with case counts still rising, vaccination against the virus is more urgently emerging as an important tactic for stopping its spread. The worldwide monkeypox outbreak that began in early May has so far led to more than 7,500 infections in 57 countries, with more than 600 of them in the US.
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