US declares public health emergency over monkeypox
Darpan News Desk IANS, 05 Aug, 2022 11:05 AM
Los Angeles, Aug 5 (IANS) The US government has declared monkeypox a public health emergency, more than a week after the World Health Organization qualified the outbreak as a global emergency.
"We are prepared to take our response to the next level in addressing this virus and we urge every American to take monkeypox seriously," Xavier Becerra, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), told reporters during a briefing on Thursday.
As of Thursday, the US has confirmed more than 6,600 cases of monkeypox, nearly 25 per cent of the global total of 25,800 so far, Xinhua news agency reported.
A public health emergency can trigger grant funding and open up more resources for various aspects of a federal response. It also allows the HHS secretary to enter into contracts for treatments and other necessary medical supplies and equipment, as well as support emergency hospital services, among other things.
New York, California and Illinois, the top three states in terms of confirmed monkeypox cases in the country, have already declared state of emergencies in response to the outbreak. Some cities, including New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles, have also made their own emergency declarations.
Despite Thursday's proclamation, HHS officials still hoped to prevent monkeypox from becoming endemic in the country.
"We continue to marshal forward the tools that we need to make sure that we can take on monkeypox and keep it from spreading to the point of becoming endemic," Becerra said Thursday, adding, "There should be no reason why we can't stay ahead of this if we all work together."
But some experts warned that the outbreak could not be contained only if the authority moved more quickly and effectively.
Gregg Gonsalves, an expert in policy modeling on infectious disease and substance use from Yale University, called Becerra "a liar" on his official twitter page on Wednesday after the HHS secretary touted the authority had "made vaccines, tests and treatments well beyond the numbers that are currently needed, available to all jurisdictions who manage their public health systems."
"Unfortunately, delayed actions mean monkeypox has spread within the gay community and among other men who have sex with men," David Harvey, executive director of the National Coalition of STD Directors, told the Guardian on Monday.
"This outbreak has grown to be a public health crisis in America. We are still in a very chaotic situation at the state and local level with an organized response," he said.
Advocates and lawmakers are calling for the Biden administration to remove barriers to access for TPOXX, which is FDA-approved for the treatment of human smallpox disease caused by variola virus in adults and children, to reduce the spread of monkeypox.
Currently, if a health care provider wants to try TPOXX for a monkeypox patient, they have to obtain special approval through the CDC and its "Investigational New Drug" programme.
The WHO European office is concerned that the recent lifting of pandemic restrictions on international travel and events could act as a catalyst for rapid transmission, Xinhua news agency reported.
Three people were killed Wednesday in a shooting at a Tulsa medical building on a hospital campus, a police captain said. Capt. Richard Meulenberg confirmed the number of dead. Meulenberg said the shooter also was dead.
Matthew Rycroft, the senior-most civil servant at the Home Office, reportedly informed him that he and another officer who had been short-listed for the job that they would not be selected. He is not known to have spelled out a reason for the decision.
Soon after the aircraft went out of contact, the Nepal Army deployed its personnel in the Lete area for search. The plane was carrying 13 Nepalese, four Indians, and two Germans.
In a public session on Monday, WHO's Dr. Rosamund Lewis said it was critical to emphasize that the vast majority of cases being seen in dozens of countries globally are in gay, bisexual or men who have sex with men, so that scientists can further study the issue and for those at risk to be careful.
The incident commander who was on scene during the 45 minutes it took for tactical officers to storm a bullet-strewn classroom in Uvalde, Tex., on Tuesday made the "wrong decision" to wait, the head of the state's Department of Public Safety acknowledged.
