The White House announced that it will begin distributing monkeypox vaccines across the country to combat the virus’s spread, focusing on people most at risk and communities with the highest number of cases.
The US Department of Health and Human Services will send 56,000 doses of the Jynneos vaccine to high-transmission areas right away.
According to the White House, an additional 240,000 doses will be distributed over the next few weeks, with even more coming this summer and fall.
The White House announced on Tuesday that an additional 1.6 million doses would be made available in the coming months.
According to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the states with the highest number of monkeypox cases are California, New York, Illinois, and Florida, as well as Washington, D.C. (CDC).
“We are recommending that vaccines be provided to both people with known monkeypox exposures who are contacted by public health and also to those people who have been recently exposed to monkeypox,” said CDC director Rochelle Walensky.
According to the most recent CDC data, 306 cases of monkeypox have been reported in 28 states since the first case was confirmed in the United States on May 18.
