Another Vax On the Way, This One for Monkeypox

First, what is Monkeypox?

It's a 'relative' of the smallpox virus, first detected in 1958.

The first human case was in 1970 in Congo, Africa. It's not super close to the smallpox virus, but health officials say the well-known smallpox vaccine was 85 percent efficient in preventing it.  Since worldwide smallpox vaccination efforts have decreased over the last 30 years, there has been an increase in the virus.

In 2003 in the U.S. there was a very small outbreak, related to a pet store that sold monkeys who came from a known virus-infected area.

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 US Health and Human Services announce the release of the Monkeypox vaccine.

HSS said late Wednesday they will be making available thousands of vaccines for persons who are considered at high-risk for the virus.  According to HHS:

"HHS is rapidly expanding access to hundreds of thousands of doses of the JYNNEOS vaccine for prophylactic use against monkeypox in areas with the highest transmission and need, using a tiered allocation system. Jurisdictions can also request shipments of the ACAM2000 vaccine, which is in much greater supply, but due to significant side effects is not recommended for everyone."

In 2019, the FDA approved what's called the JYNNEOS vaccine, which is a two-dose treatment. According to HHS, a Danish company, Bavarian Nordic, is the company that makes it.  HHS says 296,000 doses of the vaccine will be distributed and will use a variety of criteria to determine the most high-risk persons who need it.

According to the website Medshadow.com, as of June 21st, 2022, there are 4,769 cases worldwide, 305 in the U.S.

There are 66 confirmed cases in CA, 63 in New York (by far the most), and 6 in WA state. 

So, now you know what's going on.