The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has identified nine cases of monkeypox across seven U.S. states, officials said Thursday: in California, Florida, Massachusetts, New York, Utah, Virginia and Washington.
“The U.S. has the resources we need to help us respond to monkeypox in this country right now. We’ve been preparing for this type of outbreak for decades,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a briefing.
Walensky mentioned two vaccines that are approved by the Food and Drug Administration for smallpox and stored in the National Strategic Stockpile. The U.S. has 100 million doses of one vaccine, called ACAM2000. The second, called Jynneos, is FDA-approved for use against monkeypox in particular and some doses of it have already been distributed.
Although some of the U.S. patients have a history of travel to areas where monkeypox has been spreading recently, that’s not true for every one. Given that, Walensky said, “we need to presume that there is some community spread.”
