Infections rose by nearly 7,500 to more than 35,000 cases in 92 countries overall, but almost all of the reported cases are in Europe and the Americas, according to WHO data. Twelve deaths have been reported so far. The vast majority of patients continue to be men who have sex with men, said WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Global supply of the monkeypox vaccine, called Jynneos in the US, remains limited and data on its effectiveness in the current outbreak is sparse, Tedros said. Jynneos is manufactured by the Danish biotech company Bavarian Nordic. “We remain concerned that the unequal access to vaccines seen during the Covid-19 pandemic will be repeated and that the poorest will continue to be left behind,” Tedros said during a press conference in Geneva on Wednesday. Although data on the effectiveness of the vaccine are limited, there are reports of breakthrough cases in which people who received the vaccines after exposure to the virus still become ill as well as people who become infected after receiving the vaccine as a preventive measure, according to the Dr. Rosamund. Lewis, WHO’s technical lead on monkeypox. The monkeypox vaccine can be given after exposure to reduce the risk of severe disease or before exposure to reduce the risk of infection. “We know from the beginning that this vaccine would not be a silver bullet, that it would not meet all the expectations placed on it, and that we do not have solid efficacy or effectiveness data in this context.” Lewis told reporters. Those reports aren’t surprising, Lewis said, but they underscore the importance of people taking other precautions, such as reducing the number of sexual partners and avoiding group or casual sex during the current outbreak. It’s also important for people to know that their immune system doesn’t reach its peak response until two weeks after the second dose, he said. “People have to wait until the vaccine creates a peak immune response, but we don’t know yet what the overall effectiveness will be,” Lewis said. A small study from the 1980s found that the smallpox vaccines available at the time were 85% effective in preventing monkeypox. Jynneos was approved in the US in 2019 to treat both smallpox and monkeypox, which belong to the same family of viruses. “The fact that we are starting to see some unprecedented cases is also very important information, because it tells us that the vaccine is not 100% effective in any given circumstance,” he said. The WHO has noticed some mutations in the monkeypox virus, although it’s unclear what those changes mean for the pathogen’s behavior and how it affects the human immune response, Lewis said. The first known case of an animal contracting monkeypox from humans in the current outbreak was recently reported in Paris. A pet dog that was caught was infected by a couple who became ill with the virus. The couple reported sharing their bed with the dog. Public health officials have advised people who are sick with monkeypox to isolate themselves from their pets. A pet becoming infected is not unusual or unexpected, said Dr. Mike Ryan, head of the WHO’s emergency program. Dr Sylvie Briand, head of pandemic preparedness at the WHO, said this does not mean dogs can transmit the virus to humans. Lewis said there is a theoretical risk of rodents rummaging through trash and contracting the virus, and it’s important to manage waste properly to avoid infecting animals outside of human households. Historically, monkeypox has jumped from rodents and other small mammals to humans in West and Central Africa. “What we don’t want to see happen is the disease moving from one species to another and then staying in that species,” Ryan said. In this scenario, the virus could evolve rapidly, which would create a dangerous risk to public health. “I don’t expect the virus to evolve faster in a single dog than in a single human,” he said.
