How can transmission of monkeypox be brought under control? Elizabeth Tracey reports
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With limited amounts of monkeypox vaccine available globally, what is the best strategy to use it? Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, says targeted vaccination is most likely to help.
Adalja: When we think about how smallpox was eradicated off the planet it was ring vaccination. They vaccinated close contacts of individuals, but what that relied on was very good contract tracing so they knew who was actually exposed to a case. That type of procedure didn’t work very well with monkeypox. Contract tracing was just inadequate. So they quickly moved to going after the at risk population. Really that’s the containment here is going to be getting vaccine into the at risk group. The problem is as well all know we don’t have enough of that vaccine. :29
Adalja says using a reduced dose of the vaccine is one strategy that is being utilized right now, and notes that ramping up production will take some time before adequate doses are available, so he urges strategies to reduce one’s risk of infection. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.