US declares Monkeypox a public health emergency
Washington [US], August 5: As per the media reports, the United States declared Monkeypox a Public Health Emergency over monekypox outbreak.
As per the sources, the announcement of the same was made by President Biden’s health secretary Xavier Becerra.
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Earlier, a week ago the World Health Organisation declared a global health emergency over the outbreak, which gives federal agencies a power to direct money towards developing and evaluating vaccines and drugs, to access emergency funding and to hire additional workers to help manage the outbreak.
The Health secretary, Xavier Becerra said that, "We're prepared to take our response to the next level in addressing this virus, and we urge every American to take monkeypox seriously."
The move of declaring Monkeypox as Public Health Emergency amid intense pressure from activists and public health expert.
Biden earlier named a veteran emergency response official and a respected infectious disease specialist to coordinate the response from the White House -- a sign that the administration is stepping up its efforts.
Supplies of the monkeypox vaccine, called Jynneos, have been severely constrained, and the administration has been criticized for moving too slowly to expand the number of doses. Declaring the emergency would not ease that shortage, but the administration may take steps to allow quicker access to tecovirimat, the drug recommended for treating the disease.
Meanwhile, the United States had recorded nearly 7,000 monkeypox cases, with the highest rates per capita in Washington, New York and Georgia.
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Declaring monkeypox an emergency sends "a strong message that this is important, that it must be dealt with now," said Anne Rimoin, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a member of the W.H.O.'s advisory panel on monkeypox, as per the media portal.
-PTC News with ANI inputs
