Available appointments for monkeypox vaccinations in the District of Columbia were exhausted on Tuesday, signaling growing concern about the monkeypox outbreak stretching across 31 states and D.C.
Appointments were first made available on June 27 to be scheduled online, similar to the way the city signed up residents for COVID-19 vaccines. By July 5, all of the appointments had been filled. While monkeypox is not a sexually transmitted disease in the traditional sense, much of the outbreak appears to be driven by men who have sex with men.
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D.C.’s vaccine supply was reserved for gay, bisexual, and other adult men who have sex with men and have had multiple sexual partners or anonymous sexual partners in the last two weeks, sex workers of any sexual orientation or gender identity, and any staff at establishments where sexual activity occurs, such as bathhouses, saunas, and sex clubs.
The recent outbreak of monkeypox, a less-lethal cousin of smallpox, has led to 460 cases, according to tracking from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of that total, 31 cases have been reported in D.C., the fifth-highest tally in the U.S. behind California, New York, Illinois, and Florida.
The rapid monkeypox vaccine uptake suggests that the people who are most vulnerable to infection, which often causes visible rashes, lesions, and flulike symptoms, are worried about community spread. The spread of the potentially severe viral infection and the rush to secure a vaccine echoes the tense early weeks of dealing with the little-understood COVID-19 outbreak and the subsequent vaccination boom once shots were made available in late December 2020.
The Biden administration recently unveiled its plans for ramping up diagnostic testing and vaccinations for monkeypox using the Jynneos vaccine, which is effective even when administered after exposure to the virus, stopping infection in its tracks.
Administration officials announced that a total of 1.3 million additional doses of the two-dose Jynneos vaccine to prevent monkeypox infection will be added to the strategic national stockpile throughout 2022, on top of the 64,000 doses already procured. The administration will initially make 56,000 doses of the vaccine available to states and jurisdictions with rates of high transmission.
The Department of Health and Human Services is also expecting another 240,000 doses of vaccines to be made available to a wider swathe of people at high risk of contracting the virus in the coming weeks. The agency will hold another 60,000 in its reserves and is in consistent contact with the vaccine’s manufacturer about accelerating the shipment of more doses as needed.
D.C. has received over 1,200 doses of the Jynneos vaccine from the first tranche of vaccines made available by the federal government, relatively few compared to major cities such as New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
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“We are coordinating with states and jurisdictions to support their local monkeypox response with vaccines that can help prevent the spread of the virus,” HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response Dawn O’Connell said last week. “We will continue to be responsive to jurisdictions and deliver vaccine as quickly as we can while we maintain a focus on fair and equitable distribution nationwide.”
