Over two years of COVID-19, and people think differently regarding viruses.
This month, the United States declared monkeypox a public health emergency, and people at high risk of contracting the virus – especially men who have sex with men – are lining the streets town to get vaccinated. An outbreak of bird flu that has pushed up egg prices is finally ending. Poliomyelitis has reappeared in New York. And then there’s SARS-CoV-2, which still infects around 93,000 people a day in the United States.
“There’s increased attention on these types of outbreaks and diseases,” said Chris Meekins, health policy analyst at Raymond James. “Where we have been historically, it’s just that the attention is greater.”
There are several factors that help explain some of the activity we observe. Research suggests that climate change and changing land use patterns might create a higher risk of viruses jumping from animals to humans. Some people are reluctant to get vaccinated and to have their children vaccinated. And it has become clear that public health organizations need to rethink their approach to outbreaks.
Just last week, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, called for a reorganization of the public health agency.
“It’s time for CDC to change,” she told employees, according to The New York Times.
For now, however, the focus is on encouraging vaccination, where possible.
Although some people are increasingly hesitant to get vaccinated, the pandemic has also slowed the use of medical services, including childhood vaccinations. A study published last year in JAMA Pediatrics found that the rate of infants, children, and adolescents in the United States who were up-to-date on their vaccinations was lower in fall 2020 compared to 2019. At the end of 2020, the World Health Organization called for advancing measles and polio campaigns around the world despite the pandemic.
“This is a wake-up call,” said Dr. Peter Salk, chairman of the Jonas Salk Legacy Foundation and son of polio vaccine developer Jonas Salk, before noting: “I don’t think the people have to start waving red flags and urgently running to that place or place.
That said, Salk recommends boosters for people at high risk of polio infection. (This is the same as the CDC recommendation.)
Polio is in New York.
Last month, New York health officials reported a case of polio in an unvaccinated resident of Rockland County, north of New York’s borough of Bronx.
They also said poliovirus, which causes paralytic poliomyelitis, has been detected in New York’s sewage. It has also been detected in sewage in Rockland and Orange counties, both of which have polio vaccination rates in 2-year-olds well below the state average of 78.9%. State data excludes New York City as of August 1. Orange County has a rate of 58.7%, while Rockland County has a rate of 60.3%.
Dr Mary Bassett, the state’s health commissioner, described the sewage monitoring data as “alarming, but not surprising”.
Polio vaccines, which have been around since the 1950s, are included in the childhood immunization schedule. However, only 86% of New York City children aged 6 months to 5 years have received all three doses of the polio vaccine.
“The problem you’re facing and why polio and other diseases like this are probably going to become a little bit more prevalent is that you’ve really had this politicization of vaccines, this politicization of public health activities, to the point that there’s a group of people it’s like we don’t listen to that anymore,” Meekins said.
Monkeypox is now a public health emergency in the United States
Months following initial warnings from Europe, more than 14,000 people in the United States have been diagnosed with the poxvirus, which was first detected in 1970 and is endemic in parts of Africa, on Thursday . Around 40,000 people worldwide have tested positive and 12 have died.
Unlike SARS-CoV-2, however, the United States already has vaccine and treatment options for this virus. There are two shots: BAVA from Bavarian Nordic,
+1,49%
Jynneos and EBS d’Emergent BioSolutions,
-1,37%
smallpox vaccine, ACAM2000. Antivirals that treat smallpox such as SIGA from Siga Technologies,
+0,35%
CMRX de Tpoxx et Chimerix,
-3.95%
Tembexa should be effective once morest monkeypox.
Although Wall Street analysts say they don’t expect monkeypox to become a health problem for all Americans, the outbreak has raised other questions regarding how the United States is responding to virus threats in the future.
“How will public health apply lessons from COVID to shape a more effective response to monkeypox and future public health crises?” Cowen analysts wrote in a note to investors last week.
