Biden administration scrambles to get additional 144,000 monkeypox vaccines as demand outstrips supply

07/13/2022 / By Belle Carter

The Biden administration is scrambling to get an additional 144,000 doses of monkeypox vaccines as demand outstrips supply in the United States.

“A sincere apology for the technical difficulties our vendor [Medrite] experienced with today’s monkeypox vaccine appointment rollout. We pledge to do better in the days and weeks ahead,” New York Health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan posted on Twitter on July 7.

Some 41,000 doses of the Jynneos vaccine have been distributed to states from the national stockpile by the national government and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“We are using every tool we have to increase and accelerate Jynneos vaccine availability in jurisdictions that need them the most,” Steve Adams, director of the Strategic National Stockpile, said in a news release.

He added that in less than 10 days, around 200,000 Jynneos vaccine doses would be available in communities where transmission has been the highest.

Monkeypox, a viral zoonotic disease, caused by the monkeypox virus, is recognized as the most significant orthopoxvirus infection after the eradication of smallpox. The current outbreak is mostly among gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men, but anyone can get and spread monkeypox, the Health Department said. (Related: Monkeypox is clearly a “gay” disease, but the CDC is doing everything possible to avoid offending LGBTs.)

As of July 11, 223 people in New York have tested positive for orthopoxvirus, and all cases are likely monkeypox. That is up from 111 cases on July 5 and more than quadruple the number from a week before that.

The government has ordered another 2.5 million doses of the vaccine for future monkeypox outbreaks and in case of smallpox outbreaks. These doses are expected to arrive in the stockpile in early 2023.

Biden slammed for concealing the real monkeypox vaccine situation

Meanwhile, the White House has faced criticisms for failing to secure the stockpile of Jynneos monkeypox vaccines in Denmark. Around one million doses are currently stuck at the Bavarian Nordic manufacturing facility allegedly due to red tape.

A June 28 letter sent to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) assistant secretary for Preparedness and Response pointed out that Americans have spent $2 billion since 2007 to “develop, manufacture, and stockpile” doses of the Jynneos vaccine as part of a federal security program.

The stockpile has over a million doses, enough to inoculate more than 500,000 people from at-risk areas.

“But members of the at-risk communities in the U.S. are being turned away from monkeypox vaccination because these vaccines are not available in sufficient quantity in the U.S., but are instead sitting in freezers in Denmark,” the letter stated.

The group pointed out that the same oversight of vaccine production and distribution that hampered the global Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) response has caused the failure to contain the current monkeypox outbreak.

The U.S. government is unable to distribute the vaccines stored in the Scandinavian country to its citizens because the FDA failed to hold a timely inspection of the facility. The FDA then refused to accept inspection results from the European Union’s regulatory arm, which considered the facility safe.

James Krellenstein, co-founder of PrEP4All said the Biden administration is “not being transparent” about the real situation.

“Why were the Europeans able to inspect this plant a year ago, ensuring these doses can be used in Europe and the Biden Administration did not do the same? FDA is making a judgment that they’d rather let gay people remain unvaccinated for weeks and weeks and weeks than trust the European certification process,” Krellenstein lamented.

The vaccines in Washington and New York City ran out in late June, the same day it was offered to citizens. The administration reportedly sent an additional 8,195 vaccines to New York.

In Los Angeles, officials are giving out doses to those who attended an event deemed a high risk for exposure or people who have had contact with an infected individual.

Health officials say the infection spreads through contact with bodily fluids, sores or shared items such as bedding or clothing that were contaminated with fluids. It can also be transmitted through saliva and sexual contact.

Visit MonkePoxPanic.com for more news related to the monkeypox spread.

Watch the below video that talks about NY and DC running out of monkeypox vaccines.

This video is from the zolnareport.com channel on Brighteon.com.