PERSONAL HEALTH

Monkeypox Arrives In Tompkins County

Limited Vax Supply Going First To NYC Then To Rest Of State

By Julia Nagel

As monkeypox cases trend upwards across the U.S. and the world, the Tompkins County Health Department (TCHD) has identi ed two cases among county residents.

“We've had several [additional] cases that tested, but tested negative” TCHD Senior Community Health Services Nurse Rachel Buckwalter explained.

According to the TCHD, no local close contacts were identi ed with either of the two cases. ough the county currently has access to monkeypox tests, no vaccines are available in the area yet.

In the U.S., there are two vaccines that can protect against monkeypox: JYNNEOS (also known as Imvamune or Imvanex) and ACAM2000. Both of these vaccines were originally intended for use against smallpox, but are at least 85% e ective against monkeypox as well, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

For now, it seems as though monkeypox vaccines are largely going to or being used in places with high case counts—i.e., not Tompkins County.

“[Vaccines are] being allocated for high risk [individuals or] con rmed close contacts of positive cases. And New York City (NYC) has over 1,000 cases right now. So the vaccine is going towards places that are harder hit,” Buckwalter explained.

More vaccines are on their way and will arrive over the next four to six weeks, a press release from Governor Hochul’s O ce explained. Of the 110,000 vaccine doses, around 80,000 will be allocated to NYC and 30,000 will be sent elsewhere in the state, though the exact destinations were unspeci ed.

At the moment, the virus seems to be spreading mostly in large cities, and almost exclusively within the gay and bisexual communities. About 98% of people a icted with monkeypox have been gay or bisexual men, according to a study published in mid-July by the New England Journal of Medicine.

Although the virus currently has a foothold within the men who have sex with men (MSM) community, Stella Safo, an HIV primary care physician and the founder of Just Equity for Health, explained the dangers of characterizing Monkeypox as solely a “gay disease,” as HIV has all too o en been framed.

“I see the consequences of the framing around an infectious disease day-to-day when I’m taking care of my patients,” Safo said in a press release from the Institute for Public Accuracy. “If you think about the way monkeypox spreads––through skin-to-skin contact, uids, materials like bedding and towels––there’s no way it will just stay among MSM.”

And sure enough, two pediatric monkeypox cases have been reported in the United States so far—one in California, and the other a child from the United Kingdom that was visiting Washington D.C. with their family. Several cases have been reported among U.S. women as well.

Monkeypox is signi cantly less infectious than COVID, because it spreads mainly through prolonged skin-to-skin contact. It’s also much less deadly.

“People are like, ‘Do you know if monkeypox is going to spread to me on the subway or in the grocery store?’ I don't think we're gonna see that,” Buckwalter

TCHD Senior Community Health Services Nurse Rachel Buckwalter (Photo: Provided)

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