New monkeypox cases are declining in the United States, a trend public health officials and clinicians attribute to vaccination and changes in behavior.
Eligible individuals who did not receive the monkeypox vaccine were about 14 times more likely to become infected than those who received a first dose of the two-dose vaccine, according to new early data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — a promising sign CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said provides “a level of cautious optimism that the vaccine is working as intended.”
The CDC is expanding eligibility for vaccination against a virus that has infected more than 25,000 people in the United States. Despite the decrease in new cases, severe infections have been showing up in recent weeks among men, the majority of them Latino and Black, according to CDC officials. Most have weak immune systems because they have advanced HIV. In many instances, these patients have had more than 100 lesions.