Clinical trials could get monkeypox drug to desperate patients, but U.S. efforts lag
TPOXX, an antiviral approved for smallpox, can help with monkeypox symptoms. The drug is very hard to access, but clinical trials could improve that.
On a sultry Tuesday evening in New York City, Luke Brown excitedly opened a newly delivered bottle of black-and-orange pills, popped his first dose in his mouth, and washed it down with root beer.
Having contracted monkeypox this month, the lanky, bespectacled 29-year-old project manager had been suffering from what he called “the most severe pain of my life” for over a week before he finally was able to obtain a course of antivirals — a treatment he hoped would soon clear up his lesions and alleviate his suffering.
For Brown, this was cause for celebration. But it was also a sobering moment for him to reflect on how, to gain access to this medication, he had to leverage high degrees of personal privilege, medical literacy and self-advocacy that he said he was guiltily aware most people at risk for monkeypox probably lack. Because to join the fortunate few who have obtained this prized medication, called TPOXX, he had to navigate what he characterized as the exasperatingly byzantine maze of the medical and public health system.
“Here we are in the epicenter of an outbreak primarily affecting gay men in the city,” Brown said of his hometown, New York, which as of Thursday had 778 confirmed monkeypox cases out of 2,593 nationwide. “The city that of anywhere in the world should have the most impressive and robust infrastructure to respond to the health care needs of gay men. And at every level it has fallen flat on its face.”
Luke Brown points to a monkeypox lesion on the knuckle of his thumb.Benjamin Ryan for NBC NewsAnother lesion is visible just above Brown's right eyebrow.Benjamin Ryan for NBC NewsLike many of his fellow gay and bisexual men — a demographic that comprises the vast majority monkeypox cases in the global outbreak that has ballooned to 15,848 cases — Brown said he has grown increasingly appalled and infuriated by the nation’s response to a virus spreading so swiftly that many epidemiologists now believe will likely become endemic in the U.S. and around the world.
Rating: 5