Good News: Double the Amount of Monkeypox Shots Available than As Planned

Savas Abadsidis August 16, 2022

The Department of Health and Human Services planned to distribute 221,000 more doses as of Monday, but a shift in strategy is allowing more shots per vial meaning 442,000 shots are available. Meanwhile media outlets report on other monkeypox matters, including misinformation.

RELATED: Why It’s Important To Tell People Monkeypox Is Predominately Affecting Gay and Bisexual Men

“The first diagnosed case of monkeypox in the US, on May 18, did not seem like a major cause for alarm,” says Vanity Fair. “Unlike the virus that causes COVID-19, monkeypox was not novel, not airborne, and rarely fatal. In fact, the US government already possessed a robust arsenal of tools that could be used to combat it. In 2003 the US government began developing a detailed response plan for smallpox, a far more lethal virus that belongs to the same family as monkeypox. The plan, which over two decades grew to fill 333 pages, offered a playbook for how to mount an effective response to such pathogens.”

RELATED: Only Fans Adult Super Star Timothy Champagne Announces He Has Monkeypox

But misinformation spread faster than the virus. NBC News: Epidemiologists and infectious disease experts dispelled some of the most common misconceptions, including whether the virus spreads easily through the air, that cases among women and children are being undercounted, and that health care workers are at high risk.

The monkeypox vaccine requirements be like: Are you a faggot gay boy (or they/them) slut pig whore who lives in nyc?
— brenDANG (@brendang55) July 6, 2022

Thankfully, U.S. officials said they are able to ship out more monkeypox vaccine doses than previously planned — because of a strategy shift that allows more shots to be drawn from each vial.

The Associated Press:

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services had previously anticipated allowing 221,000 doses to be ordered starting Monday. But officials said they would release 442,000 doses for order by state, local and territorial health departments.
The accelerated release was only possible because U.S. health officials said last week that they would stretch the nation’s limited supply of Jynneos monkeypox vaccine by giving people one-fifth the usual dose, injected just under the skin. Previously, each vaccine dose required a full vial injected into deeper tissue. They cited research suggesting that the reduced amount is about as effective.
The 442,000 doses would equate to about 88,000 vials.
Officials said the new approach allows them to make hundreds of thousands more doses available now while they gather data about how the shots are being used. That will help the government make sure doses are being administered to the places and people that need them most, officials said.
U.S. officials previously shipped more than 630,000 doses, though not all have been used.
Federal health officials have suggested they would need about 3.2 million shots to vaccinate all those considered at highest risk of monkeypox.

Lil Nas X made a hysterical TikTok video that serves as a PSA.