By Asmau Ahmad
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the national public health agency of the United States of America, said it is preparing to release some Jynneos vaccines for the prevention of monkeypox.
According to the CDC, there is one confirmed case and four suspected cases of monkeypox in the United States.
The deputy director of the Division of High Consequence Pathogens and Pathology within the CDC’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, Dr. Jennifer McQuiston, announced on Monday.
“I can report that there has been a request for release of the Jynneos vaccine from the National Stockpile for some of the high-risk contacts of some of the early patients, so that is actively happening right now.”
According to her, the US has a “good stock” of the vaccine because it has been getting ready for the likelihood of needing to use doses for smallpox. The two-dose Jynneos vaccine is licensed to prevent smallpox and precisely to prevent monkeypox.
McQuiston said, “Right now, we have over 1,000 doses of that available, and we expect that level to ramp up very quickly in the coming weeks as the company provides more doses to us.”
She added that there is another licenced smallpox vaccine in the US, ACAM2000, adding that the country has over 100 million doses and it can be used in the prevention of monkeypox.
McQuiston said, “ACAM2000 is an older-generation smallpox vaccine that has some potential significant side effects with it. So a decision to use that widely would have to have some serious discussion behind it.”
“We are hoping to maximize vaccine distribution to those that we know would benefit from it.
“Those are people who’ve had contact with known monkeypox patients, health care workers, very close personal contact, and those in particular who might be at high risk for severe disease,” she said.
The CDC’s chief medical officer of HIV prevention, Dr. John Brooks noted that monkeypox cannot be spread through sex itself but can be spread through personal contact during sex.
Brooks said, “Monkeypox is not a sexually transmitted infection in the typical sense, but it can be transmitted during sexual and intimate content, as well as with personal contact and shared bedding and clothing,”
Brooks advised doctors to be observant of the disease, saying that it could disguise like other types of sexually transmitted diseases.
He said the rash is “showing up in different parts of the body than we typically expect to see it.”
Brooks said, “In some cases, it has produced anal or genital lesions that look like other diseases like herpes, chickenpox, or syphilis. So anyone with a rash or lesion around or involving their genitals, their anus, or any other place that they have not seen it before, get fully evaluated, both for that rash but particularly for sexually transmitted infection and other illnesses that can cause a rash.”
“What we’re trying to do by bringing attention to the fact that some of these cases have had a genital and perianal presentation is just to remind people that people may come in for an evaluation of what they think is an STD, but we’d like the provider to think ‘could it be monkeypox as well?’ if the circumstances fit the story,” he said.
