June 24, 2022 – U.S. health officials are looking to expand use of the monkeypox vaccine for children as the outbreak continues to spread across the globe, according to a report from Bloomberg. To date, more than 3,300 cases have been reported globally.
The CDC is developing a protocol aimed at allowing use of Bavarian Nordic A/S’s Jynneos vaccine in children, if needed, according to documents prepared for a meeting of agency advisers that took place this week.
The vaccine is currently cleared for use in adults and is considered safer than Emergent BioSolutions Inc.’s ACAM2000 smallpox vaccine, which can also be used against monkeypox.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said Wednesday it would expand monkeypox testing to five of the country’s largest commercial labs in order to better monitor its spread after experts warned the U.S. wasn’t doing enough to determine how widespread the outbreak actually is.
The department also said it’s helping support hospitals that want to develop high-quality tests for monkeypox.
The CDC says there are currently 36,000 courses of Bavarian Nordic’s Jynneos vaccine in the Strategic National Stockpile and the agency expects approximately 500,000 courses to be delivered this year. The US government could procure about 7.9 million courses from Bavarian if needed.