The COVID-19 pandemic and the monkeypox epidemic are very different, but the response to these diseases has revealed similar and troubling flaws, the Washington Post reported on Saturday.
“A shortage of vaccines. Long queues in clinics. A number of cases increasing every day. A spread of anxiety, fear and suspicion in the population. A government announces that everything is under control, when this is not the case”, lists the daily.
Unlike in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, monkeypox vaccines exist, but the most suitable one, the two-dose Jynneos vaccine, is in short supply, mainly due to a bottleneck in the production, and will likely remain so for several months, according to this report.
The situation would require at least 329,000 doses of the vaccine, almost the entire volume of 336,710 doses the government has delivered as of July 29. The total number of the high-risk vulnerable population could be even larger, up to 1.7 million people according to estimates from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the article points out.
“Furthermore, the virus is spreading rapidly and it may already be too late to contain it,” he adds, noting that recent declarations on the state of emergency by the Joe Biden administration and the he World Health Organization emphasize that this crisis is not about to be resolved.