Biden Administration to Allow New Injection Method for Monkeypox Vaccine

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration has decided to stretch out its limited supply of monkeypox vaccine by allowing a different method of injection that uses one-fifth as much per shot, according to senior administration officials familiar with the planning. In order for the Food and Drug Administration to authorize so-called intradermal injection, which would involve injecting one-fifth of the current dose into the skin instead of a full dose into underlying fat, the Department of Health and Human Services will need to issue a new emergency declaration allowing regulators to invoke the F.D.A.’s emergency use powers. That declaration is expected as early as Tuesday afternoon.

The move would help alleviate a shortage of vaccine that has turned into a growing political and public health problem for the administration. The administration has faced a barrage of criticism that it was too slow to ship vaccine that was ready for use to the United States from Denmark, where it was manufactured, and too slow to order that bulk vaccine stocks be processed into vials after the disease first surfaced here in mid-May. In less than three months, more than 8,900 monkeypox cases have been reported. The disease spreads primarily through skin-to-skin contact during sex among gay and bisexual men.

Federal officials are concerned about both the current infection rate and the risk that the disease could spread to other parts of the population. Even though it invested more than $1 billion in developing the two-dose vaccine known as Jynneos that works against both monkeypox and smallpox, the government has only 1.1 million shots on hand. It needs about three times as many doses to cover the 1.6 million to 1.7 million Americans who, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are at high risk of contracting monkeypox. Federal health officials said last week that so far, they have distributed about 600,000 doses of the vaccine to state and local jurisdictions.

The Department of Health and Human Services last week issued a broader public emergency declaration that allowed the federal government to more easily allot money and other resources to fight the virus. Research on intradermal injection of the monkeypox vaccine is essentially limited to one study. It showed that when the vaccine was injected between skin layers, it induced an immune response comparable to that from a standard injection into the fat underneath the skin. Federal officials have consulted with a variety of outside groups about switching to the intradermal injection approach, including the Infectious Diseases Society of America, according to people familiar with the talks.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/08/us/politics/monkeypox-vaccine.html

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Heard about this option being discussed in some news report the past couple days...

[hamsterjill]

1. Why does that make me feel like we are lab rats?

This injection method isn’t entirely new. I remember getting a DPT injection via the “air gun” way back in the 1970’s. I remember that it hurt like hell.

I hope they have improved the process.

[BumRushDaShow]

2. This sounds like they want to do a "shallow" prick of the needle

to inject so the vaccine is closer to the surface of the skin vs deeper (straight) down.

[uppityperson]

3. It's like a TB test, making a bleb in the skin.

[BumRushDaShow]

4. That's what it sounds like

about the depth of a prick. I was envisioning something like going in almost parallel to the skin surface like is done with an IV or blood draw.

[roamer65]

5. The virus spreads primarily through skin to skin contact.

It doesn’t care whether you are gay, straight, lesbian, bisexual, asexual, etc, etc…

Shame on the CDC for putting others at risk who will think it’s only a gay man’s disease.

[BumRushDaShow]

6. "It doesn't care whether you are gay, straight, lesbian, bisexual, asexual, etc, etc... "

That was the NYT characterization.

CDC has this (no gender/orientation reference) - https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/monkeypox/vaccines.html

CDC recommends vaccination for people who have been exposed to monkeypox and people who may be more likely to get monkeypox.

People more likely to get monkeypox include:

People who have been identified by public health officials as a contact of someone with monkeypox

People who are aware that one of their sexual partners in the past 2 weeks has been diagnosed with monkeypox

People who had multiple sexual partners in the past 2 weeks in an area with known monkeypox

People whose jobs may expose them to orthopoxviruses, such as:

Laboratory workers who perform testing for orthopoxviruses

Laboratory workers who handle cultures or animals with orthopoxviruses

Some designated healthcare or public health workers

[roamer65]

7. Then shame on the NYT.

Deplorable reporting.