There was a press conference today held by the White House. The attendees were:
- Dr. Ashish Jha, White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator
- Dr. Rochelle Walensky, CDC Director
- David Boucher, Director, Infectious Disease Preparedness and Response, HHS ASPR
- Dr. Raj Panjabi, White House NSC Senior Director for Global Health Sec & Biodefense
- Dr. Peter Marks, Director, Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, Food and Drug Administration
- Jennifer McQuiston, DVM, MS, Deputy Director of CDC’s Division of High Consequence Pathogens and Pathology
- Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, Director of CDC’s Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention
My notes:
The government is employing a containment strategy to combat monkeypox.
No deaths in the US so far in the current monkeypox outbreak.
The scientific/medical community knows a lot about monkeypox and has studied it for decades.
The government is increasing testing capacity. Now can process 10k tests per week.
Working on the vaccination situation.
Will help healthcare providers with what they need to deal with the monkeypox outbreak.
The government is and will engage the most affected communities.
There are no borders to this disease.
The emergency response center was activated.
There are 4,600 global case in 49 countries.
There are 306 cases in the US.
Suspicious rashes should be tested for monkeypox.
Tomorrow (June 29) there is a COCA call for clinicans on monkeypox.
Expanding vaccine efforts. People with known direct and indirect exposures are eligible for vaccines. Risk groups and people in risk areas are eligible if possibly exposed in the last two weeks. People at high risk for severe disease and possible exposure situations are eligible.
There are 64k doses of vaccine available. After FDA inspection in next couple of weeks, 800k doses will be available in/by August. The vaccine is a two dose protocol. 1.3 milion doses will be available in 2023.
Close contact and sexual contact are the primary drivers for transmission. Droplet transmission is possible but officials say as far as they can determine contact is primary.
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