How the US let 20 million doses of monkeypox vaccine expire | World News,The Indian Express

Some 10 weeks into the outbreak, many people at high risk who want to get vaccinated have been unable to find a dose and may not be able to find one for months.

Less than a decade ago, the United States had some 20 million doses of a new smallpox vaccine — also effective against monkeypox — sitting in freezers in a national stockpile.

Such vast quantities of the vaccine, known today as Jynneos, could have slowed the spread of monkeypox after it first emerged in the United States in mid-May. Instead, the supply, known as the Strategic National Stockpile, had only some 2,400 usable doses left at that point, enough to fully vaccinate just 1,200 people.

The rest of the doses had expired.

Now, some 10 weeks into the outbreak, many people at high risk who want to get vaccinated have been unable to find a dose and may not be able to find one for months.

The chain of events that led the stockpile of a now-critical vaccine to dwindle to near nothing in the United States is only now emerging.

https://indianexpress.com/article/world/how-the-us-let-20-million-doses-of-monkeypox-vaccine-expire-8065704/

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