1/ WHO declared #monkeypox a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) over the weekend.
with '
cbsnews.com/video/us-neede
Conversation
2/ What does it mean that the WHO has declared monkeypox a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC)?
A PHEIC is not the same thing as a pandemic.
Monkeypox was pandemic in June. It's a novel virus that has been causing outbreaks across multiple continents.
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3/ A PHEIC is designed to get countries to coordinate their responses.
Ebola & Zika were also public health emergencies of international concern.
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4/ Had the declared monkeypox a PHEIC back in June, more might have been done sooner to contain monkeypox, both in Western & Central Africa as well as among gay and bisexual men & trans women in the US/Europe/etc, among whom the virus is actively spreading.
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5/ But a public health emergency of international concern is no guarantee that countries will share vaccine.
We've seen really inequitable distribution of COVID vaccines.
Only a quarter of people living in Africa have gotten a single dose of COVID vaccine.
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6/ The safer monkeypox vaccine, Jynneos, is in extremely short supply.
Most if not all of that supply is going to the US & other wealthy countries.
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7/ But if we don't also vaccinate people in the endemic countries in West & Central Africa, monkeypox will keep reemerging from the source.
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8/ Not to mention that these are the countries that have been suffering from the impacts of monkeypox for years & have been neglected all these years.
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9/ Is the US government doing enough to control monkeypox?
Laboratory capacity for testing has ramped up significantly over the past couple weeks.
But in-house laboratory-developed tests still haven't been OK'ed.
nytimes.com/2022/05/29/opi
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10/ And too many health care providers remain uneducated about monkeypox &/or choose not to do the work of testing for monkeypox.
Quote Tweet
More on the patient in the thread
below:
newyorker.com/news/dispatch/
Commercial labs helped ramp up monkeypox testing capacity in the last couple of weeks, but too many clinicians aren't aware or don't want to deal with the hassle of testing for monkeypox.
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11/ Note that just because someone tests positive for another sexually transmissible infection doesn't mean they don't have monkeypox.
Many are testing positive for monkeypox + another infection.
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Data from the UK on demographic & clinical characteristics of monkeypox cases:
thelancet.com/journals/lanin
1 in 4 patients had a concurrent sexually transmissible infection.
Just because someone tests positive for another STI doesn't mean you shouldn't also test them for monkeypox.
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12/ We needed a lot more monkeypox vaccine supply a lot sooner.
Should we have been more aggressive about stockpiling Jynneos monkeypox vaccine sooner (not specifically for the monkeypox outbreak, but for smallpox bioterrorism preparedness) in the strategic national stockpile?
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13/ Why so many outbreaks, epidemics & pandemics all at once?
The world currently has 3 simultaneous public health emergencies of international concern: COVID, monkeypox & polio.
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14/ What's driving these infectious disease outbreaks?
It's a combination of things:
🔹childhood vaccination rates⬇️⬇️⬇️during the COVID pandemic, in part due to disruption caused by COVID & because people became more skeptical about vaccines during that time
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15/ continued
🔹globalization✈️, which makes it easier for diseases to travel around the world🌍
🔹climate change & deforestation, which are changing the geography of animal🐀/insect🦟 habitats & the diseases they carry
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16/ continued
🔹a lack of investment in public health in the US🇺🇸 & around the world🌎, so we don't have the capacity to respond to these crises
Infectious disease outbreaks will very much be part of our new normal moving forward.
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17/ What does it mean that we're seeing monkeypox in kids?
Monkeypox is MOSTLY spreading among men who have sex with men.
But remember, it's spread through direct skin-to-skin contact.
Kids & women can get monkeypox.
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17/ Monkeypox can be deadly in pregnant women, newborns, little kids & immunocompromised people.
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18/ President Biden is feeling better. He still has a sore throat.
He's gotten 4 doses of COVID vaccine.
On top of that, he's receiving a 5-day course of Paxlovid.
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19/ A study in June showed that less than 1% people who've been vaccinated, get COVID & get Paxlovid will end up in the hospital.
President Biden's oxygen levels haven't dropped.
He hasn't needed supplemental oxygen.
This is all good news.
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