On June 28, the Biden Administration released the first phase of its national monkeypox vaccine strategy. This phase of the strategy aims to rapidly deploy vaccines in the most affected communities and mitigate the spread of the disease. With this national monkeypox vaccine strategy, the United States is significantly expanding deployment of JYNNEOS vaccines from the Strategic National Stockpile, allocating 296,000 doses over the coming weeks, 56,000 of which will be allocated immediately. Over the coming months a combined 1.6 million additional doses will become available.
JYNNEOS vaccine will be allocated using a four-tier distribution strategy that prioritizes jurisdictions with the highest case rates of monkeypox. Within each tier, doses of JYNNEOS will be allocated using the numbers of people who are eligible for PrEP and the numbers of men who have sex with men who are living with HIV as indicators for the size of the population that might be at high risk for Monkeypox.
At this point, there will not be prescriptive federal guidance about how to prioritize or use their allotments, although states are likely to prioritize JYNNEOS vaccine for people with contraindications to ACAM2000 (the smallpox-approved vaccine), which has meaningful side effects, including for immuno-compromised people such as those living with HIV. NACCHO has expressed interest in uniform guidance and messaging to help prevent miscommunications to the community.
For more details about this strategy, please review this fact sheet. We will share more as we get it. Please keep us posted on efforts in your community so we can continue to ensure that the LHD voice is included in these conversations.
Additional Resources:
- CDC’s Information for Health Departments
- CDC’s Clinicians FAQ
- CDC’s for Information For Healthcare Professionals
- CDC’s Social Gatherings, Safer Sex, and Monkeypox
- Updated Case-finding Guidance: Monkeypox Outbreak – Unites States, 2022
- ASPR TRACIE Technical Assistance re: Monkeypox
- COCA Call: Monkeypox: Updates about Clinical Diagnosis and Treatment
- Public Health Communications Collaborative’s Answers to Tough Questions
