The United States declared a public health emergency on Thursday over the
monkeypox, which will allow it to disburse funds, collect data and mobilize more personnel in the fight against the disease.
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“We are prepared to take the response one step higher to address this virus, and we urge all Americans to take monkeypox seriously.” and take responsibility for helping us deal with this virus,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra.
(Of your interest: Monkeypox: the doctor who suspected a new version of the disease)
The declaration, effective for 90 days, but which can be renewed, takes place when this Thursday the 6,600 cases were exceeded throughout the country, approximately a quarter of them in the state of New York. Experts believe that there could be many more, because sometimes there are few symptoms, which can be reduced to simple lesions.
About 99% of cases in the United States have been in men who have sex with men, the Department of Health reported last week. This is the priority population for vaccination.
Vaccination and treatments
So far, the United States has delivered about 600,000 doses of the vaccine marketed as Jynneos in North America (Imvanex in Europe) and initially developed against smallpox. But it is a low number considering that some 1.6 million people are considered high risk in the country.
On Thursday, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) stated that considers allowing health personnel to administer five doses of vaccine from a single one by modifying the way in which it is injected.
Additionally, the CDC made the antiviral drug Tecovirimat available during the current outbreak.
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“Tecovirimat (also known as Tpoxx or ST-246) is approved by the FDA for the treatment of human smallpox caused by Variola virus in adults and children. However, its use for other orthopoxvirus infections, including monkeypox , is not FDA-approved.But the CDC has an Expanded Access Investigational New Drug (EA-IND) protocol that allows the use of Tecovirimat for primary or early empiric treatment of non-virus orthopoxvirus infections of smallpox, including monkeypox, in adults and children of all ages,” the CDC says.
According to the health authority, Tecovirimat (under the brand name Tpoxx) may be considered as an experimental treatment for severely ill patients with monkeypox or at high risk of severe disease.
Symptoms and Transmission
Unlike previous outbreaks in Africa, the virus is now predominantly transmitted through sexual activity, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warn that it could also be transmitted by sleeping in the same bed, sharing clothes and through of prolonged face-to-face contact.
Monkeypox is an unusual disease, which is structurally related to that of the smallpox virus and causes a similar but generally milder illness. The first symptoms of monkeypox are a high fever, swollen lymph nodes, and a smallpox-like rash.
The rash usually begins one to three days after the onset of the fever. The lesions may be flat or slightly raised, filled with clear or yellowish fluid, and may then crust over, dry out, and fall off. In most cases, the symptoms go away on their own within a few weeks, but in some people they can lead to medical complications and even death.
According to the Merck Sharp and Dohme (MSD) medical manuals, monkeypox is likely to be transmitted from animals through body fluids, including salivary or respiratory droplets, or through contact with wound exudate.
Apparently person-to-person transmission it occurs inefficiently and is thought to occur primarily through large respiratory droplets during prolonged face-to-face contact.
“The overall secondary attack rate after contact with a documented human source is 3%, and attack rates of 50% have been reported in people living with a monkeypox-infected patient,” the manuals mention.
Health emergency
The United States currently registers more than 6,500 monkeypox infections, a figure much higher than the 4,600 that were registered last week.
The declaration of a national emergency will 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 alert comes into effect, some time after New York City officials declared monkeypox a public health emergency, saying the city is the epicenter of the state’s outbreak and the move will boost efforts to help curb the spread of the disease.
“We estimate that approximately 150,000 New Yorkers may currently be at risk of exposure to monkeypox,” Mayor Eric Adams and Dr. Ashwin Vasan, commissioner of the city’s department of health and mental hygiene, said in a joint statement. “This outbreak must be addressed with urgency, action and resources, both nationally and globally, And this declaration of a public health emergency reflects the gravity of the moment.”
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Experts, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, have stressed that the monkeypox outbreak must be taken seriously and handled more rigorously as federal officials continue to weigh declaring a nationwide public health emergency.
On July 23, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern after convening its second emergency committee on the issue.
The WHO defines a public health emergency of international concern as “an extraordinary event” that it constitutes a “risk to the public health of other states through the international spread of disease” and “that potentially requires a coordinated international response”.
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