Biden administration plans to declare monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency
The Biden administration has declared monkeypox a public health emergency, as cases rise across the United States.
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US President Joe Biden and his administration have declared the monkeypox outbreak a national public health emergency, as cases are present and rising in every state except Montana and Wyoming.
The move comes in an attempt to raise awareness about the serious of the contagion, and to mobilise efforts to fund and fight the continued spread of the virus.
The announcement was expected to come from Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra on Thursday afternoon, local time.
The US government is expected to unveil a plan expediting medical resources and measures including access to vaccines and treatments.
The administration’s decision will follow those made by officials in the states of New York, Illinois, and California.The announcement follows the White House’s naming of Robert J. Fenton Jr as co-ordinator of the national response to the virus.
Cases of monkeypox in the US are doubling roughly every week.
MONKEYPOX VACCINE SHIPMENT HEADING TO AUSTRALIA
The first shipment of nearly half a million doses of a new monkeypox virus vaccine is on the way to Australia.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Health Minister Mark Butler confirmed the government had secured 450,000 doses of the vaccine by Bavarian Nordic.
The first delivery of about 22,000 doses will arrive in the country later this week.
Mr Butler flagged earlier he was in the process of finalising advice following a briefing of national cabinet by Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly on Thursday.
As it stands, 55 cases of monkeypox have been detected in Australia.
“Case numbers are certainly growing in countries that haven‘t traditionally experienced monkeypox – countries outside of Africa,” Mr Butler said.
“We‘re certainly running well behind the level of case reporting you see in the US, Canada, Europe and UK. But we’ve been working very hard on this response for the last several weeks.”
The Australian Federation of Aids Organisation commended the Commonwealth for securing the vaccines.
“The swift procurement of these vaccines is a very positive step. While local transmission of Monkeypox has so far been limited, we can’t rely on that to continue. Cities such as London, Montreal, Lisbon and Madrid are all dealing with significant community transmission,” Heath Paynter, acting CEO of AFAO, said.
“The availability of MPX vaccine for people who need it is a critical forward defence against transmission. It will help people look after their own health as well as that of people they are intimate with.
“Gay and bisexual men are already taking Monkeypox very seriously, monitoring for symptoms and regularly seeking medical advice. This is a very welcome additional tool.”
The Australasian Society for HIV, Viral Hepatitis and Sexual Health Medicine CEO Alexis Apostolellis said “vaccination is the critical next step“ in the fight against the virus.
Dr Nick Medland, sexual health specialist, ASHM president and researcher at the Kirby Institute said the outbreak should begin to slow after 75,000 Australians have had one dose of the vaccine.
He added: “(The virus) may not be eliminated until 250,000 doses have been administered to those who need them most.”
“We know from COVID-19 and from HIV that our responses to infectious diseases are only effective when clinicians work hand-in-hand with the people most affected,” Dr Medland said.
US CASES SURPASS 6000
In the US the number of cases of monkeypox has surpassed 6000, with children among those infected, as the World Health Organisation (WHO) warns “we will see more deaths” from the disease.
Monkeypox infections have nearly quintupled in two weeks, with 6326 infections recorded nationwide, with that number expected to continue increasing across the country. New York clocked the highest rate of monkeypox nationwide with 1617 cases, followed by California, with 826, according to the latest figures from the Centre of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Tuesday.
In the last week, California, Illinois and New York State have issued emergency declarations over the continued spread of monkeypox. Cases had been recorded in all but two US states as of Monday.
According to CDC data, the seven-day average of reported new cases increased from an average of 45 on July 11 to an average of 214 on July 25. At least five children have tested positive for monkeypox in the US since July.
Four of the children who have been confirmed to have the disease are US citizens, with two in California and two in Indiana. The final case was an infant who was tested while travelling through Washington, DS but is not a US resident, according to ABC 7.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has warned that young children may be at an increased risk of more severe monkeypox cases should they be infected. The organisation placed the cut-off age for severe risk at 8 years old, though it said paediatric data is “limited.”
The WHO declared the outbreak a public health emergency last month.
The number of total monkeypox cases worldwide exceeds 20,000.
The virus is transmitted primarily through close physical contact. Recent cases are mostly among men who have sex with men.
MAN, 22, DIES OF MONKEYPOX
Indian authorities reported on Monday Asia’s first possible monkeypox death in a man who recently returned from United Arab Emirates.
The health ministry in Kerala state said that tests on the 22-year-old who died on July 30 “showed that the man had monkeypox”.
The death is the fourth monkeypox-related fatality outside Africa.
Three monkeypox-related fatalities have so far been reported outside Africa in an outbreak that the World Health Organisation has declared a global health emergency.
The Indian man died in Kerala on July 30 around a week after returning from the UAE and being taken to hospital.
“The youth had no symptoms of monkeypox. He had been admitted to a hospital with symptoms of encephalitis and fatigue,” the Indian Express daily quoted Kerala’s health minister Veena George as saying on Sunday.
Twenty people identified as high risk of infection were being kept under observation, she added, including family members, friends who played football with the man and medical staff.
According to the WHO, more than 18,000 monkeypox cases have been detected throughout the world outside Africa since the beginning of May, most of them in Europe.
Spain last week recorded two monkeypox-related deaths and Brazil one. It is however unclear if monkeypox actually caused the three fatalities, with Spanish authorities as of Sunday still carrying out autopsies and Brazilian authorities saying its deceased patient had other “serious conditions”.
The WHO’s European office said on Saturday that more monkeypox-related deaths can be expected.
“With the continued spread of monkeypox in Europe, we will expect to see more deaths,” Catherine Smallwood, Senior Emergency Officer at WHO Europe, said in a statement.
India has reported at least four cases, with the first recorded on July 15 in another man who returned to Kerala from the UAE.
Kerala’s health ministry said in its statement on Monday that a high-level team from the state medical board would probe the death.
Primary tests from the National Institute of Virology in the city of Pune showed that the man had the variant from West Africa and that more genetic tests would be conducted.
It added that the man’s family only informed doctors on July 30 result of tests conducted in Dubai on July 19, by which time he was in a critical condition.
It added that there were 165 passengers on the same flight from UAE but that “nobody is a close contact”.
‘WARN EVERYONE’: LGBT COMMUNITY CONFRONTS STIGMA, SOUNDS ALARM
Whether it’s abstinence, avoiding nightclubs, limiting sexual partners or pushing for a swift vaccine rollout, Spain’s gay community are on the front line of the monkeypox virus and are taking action.
“With this monkey thing, I prefer to be careful … I don’t have sex any more, I don’t go to parties any more, and that’s until I’m vaccinated and have some immunity,” said Antonio, a 35-year-old from Madrid who declined to give his surname.
Antonio, who often went to nightclubs and sometimes to sex parties, decided to act as cases continued to increase.
Spain on Saturday reported its second monkeypox-related death. Outside of Africa, the only other such death has been in Brazil. More than 18,000 cases have been detected throughout the world outside of Africa since the beginning of May, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Spain is one of the world’s worst-hit countries. The country’s health ministry’s emergency and alert co-ordination centre put the number of infected people at 4,298.
As cases increase globally, the WHO has called on the group currently most affected by the virus – men who have sex with men – to limit their sexual partners.
Before going on holiday abroad, one holiday-maker said he would avoid “risky situations”.
“I didn’t go to sex clubs anymore and I didn’t have sex either,” the 38-year-old explained.
“This is not like Covid, the vaccine already exists, there’s no need to invent it. If it wasn’t a queer disease, we would have acted more – and faster,” said Antonio.
Like other members of the gay community, he believes the authorities have not done enough.
There is a lack of prevention, a shortage of vaccines and stigmatisation linked to the virus.
This is despite the WHO declaring the monkeypox outbreak a global health emergency.
Early signs of the disease include a high fever, swollen lymph glands and a chickenpox-like rash.
The disease usually heals by itself after two to three weeks, sometimes taking a month.
A smallpox vaccine from Danish drug maker Bavarian Nordic, marketed under the name Jynneos in the United States and Imvanex in Europe, has been found to protect against monkeypox.
It took Antonio three weeks to get an appointment to be vaccinated, after logging on to the official website every day at midnight.
Appointments “are going as fast as tickets to the next Beyonce concert”, another joked referring to the gay icon.
So far, Spain has only received 5300 doses which arrived in late June.
“We are facing a health emergency … that affects the LGBTI community, so people think it is insignificant, that it is not serious,” said Ivan Zaro, of the Imagina MAS (Imagine More) NGO.
“This is exactly what happened 40 years ago with HIV.
Image director Javier spent three days in hospital in early July after becoming infected.
After three weeks in isolation, a challenge after the pressures of Covid, he told his family and friends.
The 32-year-old, who is in a monogamous relationship, said he still did not know how he had caught it.
“I warn everyone,” he said. “It’s an infectious disease, anyone can catch it.”
While there is still widespread public confusion about the precise nature and spread of the disease, it is a fact that the overwhelming majority of monkeypox patients in the United States identify as LGBTQ and are male.
For some, the situation evokes dark parallels with the 1980s, when HIV/AIDS was stigmatised as a “gay plague,” hospitals and funeral homes turned away patients and victims, and White House officials either cracked homophobic jokes or simply ignored the new virus.
At a meeting this week in West Hollywood, a hub for Los Angeles’ LGBTQ community, actor Matt Ford received a standing ovation as he spoke openly about the “excruciating” symptoms he had endured when he contracted the disease – an experience he has also shared online.
Afterwards, he told AFP that he “definitely had doubts before coming out publicly about my experience.” “I was pretty on the fence prior to tweeting due to the potential for social stigma and people being cruel – especially on the internet – but thankfully the response was mostly positive,” he said.
What pushed Ford to speak out was the urgent need to warn others about the disease in the days leading up to West Hollywood’s major LGBTQ Pride celebrations.
While monkeypox has not so far been labelled a sexually transmitted infection (STI) and can infect anyone, the group currently most affected is men who have sex with men.
Spreading through skin-to-skin contact, the disease is most often transmitted through sexual activity, and the World Health Organisation this week urged gay and bisexual men to limit their sexual partners.
While the notion of monkeypox affecting mainly the LGBTQ community raises fear of homophobia and stigmatisation, it has also prompted anger that the US government is not taking the disease seriously enough.
A lack of available vaccines to meet demand has caused outrage across a country where some 4,900 cases have been detected – more than any other nation.
On Thursday, San Francisco and New York State declared public health emergencies in order to bolster efforts to control the spread of monkeypox.
The US health department announced plans to allocate an additional 786,000 vaccine doses, which will take supply above one million – but for many, the response has come too late.
“Why is the government not acting as fast as it should?” asked Jorge Reyes Salinas of Equality California, a coalition of LGBTQ activists and organisations.
“We need more resources, and we need more attention to this issue. It’s not just an LGBTQ concern. It should not be painted that way.” The way the health emergency is being handled revives painful memories, he said. “I think that’s always gonna be a risk in the back of our minds because, again, of the HIV and AIDS pandemic.” Roth said a lot of “blame” has been placed on men who have sex with men, when in reality the government should have “secured the vaccines sooner, and made testing more widely available.”
– Additional reporting by AFP
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