The US will declare a national health emergency due to the expansion of monkeypox

The government of USA announced this Thursday that it will declare a national health emergency due to the outbreak of monkey pox in the country, in which thousands of infections have already been registered although, for the moment, no deaths.

“We are prepared to take our response to the next level,” explained this Thursday the US Secretary of Health, Xavier Becerrain a call with journalists.

The White House makes this decision to facilitate allocating more resources and funding to the fight against the disease and follows in the wake of the state of New Yorkthat a state of emergency was decreed a few days ago for the disease.

The declaration will allow national agencies to access emergency funds and will facilitate the management of vaccines and treatments for the disease. It will also promote awareness and information efforts that, according to the authorities, are essential to contain the infections, which are advancing rapidly in the country. “We encourage all Americans to take monkeypox seriously and take responsibility to help us deal with this virus,” added the health secretary.

Earlier this week, the White House announced the creation of a response group to deal with the spread of monkeypox, after being criticized for being slow to buy vaccines and treatments. In fact, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Robert Califf, announced that his office has identified a possible solution to alleviate the lack of sufficient vaccines, while the authorities obtain new doses.

This solution would consist of administering intradermally one fifth of the dose contained in a vial of the vaccine. That would allow clinicians to use a single vial to administer five doses “without compromising its efficacy and safety,” Califf said. Last week, health authorities announced that more than a million shots against the disease would be made available to the states in the coming days, of which 600,000 have already been delivered, Becerra announced today. They also expect to receive another 150,000 doses in September, and additional vaccines in October and November.

6,500 cases throughout the country

The country currently registers more than 6,500 monkeypox infections, a figure much higher than the 4,600 registered last week. The declaration of a national emergency will also force states to share health information about monkeypox with federal authorities, which will speed up the response to the emergency, explained the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Rochelle Walensky.

The World Health Organization (WHO) already decreed two weeks ago a international health emergency by the outbreak, after more than 16,000 cases have been detected in 75 countries, many of them European, and several deaths.

Walensky explained that the populations at greatest risk and the main target of the vaccination campaign are, on the one hand, men who have sexual relations with other men and who have the HIV virus and, on the other, men with a higher risk of contracting AIDS. “Joining these two populations, we estimate that there are between 1.6 and 1.7 billion people at the highest risk level for monkeypox right now,” he said. To date, the vast majority of cases detected in the United States, as well as in other countries, are in men who have had sex with men , although the disease can be transmitted to anyone.

The US health authorities have warned that it is likely that monkeypox infections will increase in the coming days, so it is important that people are alert and health centers know that they have sufficient reserves, both of vaccines and treatments, to keep the outbreak at bay