Can we stop monkeypox outbreaks? Some experts say it’s too late : NPR

Mary Louise Kelly, Host:

It has been more than two months since the first case of monkeypox was discovered in the United States. At the time, many health officials believed the country had a chance to control or even eliminate the disease. it didn’t happen. On the contrary, cases continue to rise, raising concerns that the opportunity to contain the outbreak is now closed.

Well, I’m with two of NPR’s health correspondents, Pien Huang and Michaeleen Doucleff, to talk about this. Hello team.

MICHAELEN DOUCLEFF, BYLINE: Hello.

PIEN HUANG, BYLINE: Hey Mary Louise.

Kelly: Okay Mikaline, I have a question or two to start with. How fast when I say cases are increasing? How fast is the outbreak spreading?

Ducrev: Yes. So right now the outbreak is growing exponentially in the US, which means the country is reporting more and more new cases every week. About 5,000 cases have been detected so far, and that number is doubling every week. And it shows that the outbreak is not under control. If this trend continues, we could reach 10,000 in no time, with many more by the fall.

Kelly: And I can’t help but remember the beginning of the COVID pandemic. And there has been so much confusion about how it spreads. We were all Cloroxes wiping groceries and mail. And it took me a while to realize that it wasn’t really necessary.

Ducrev: Yes. In general, I think we handle it better. Although there are some gaps in our knowledge, so far we know how the virus spreads primarily through physical contact during sex. Recently, the New England Journal of Medicine Recently, a study was published that looked at about 500 monkeypox cases in the United States and other countries. In 95% of cases, the infection was acquired through contact during sex. Almost all of those cases were seen in men or men who had sex with multiple partners, who had an average of 5 different partners during her 3 months.So far, this is also a common pattern we see in the US

Kelly: According to the New England Journal of Medicine study you cited, 95% of cases are transmitted through sexual contact, and there are a few others. Breathe or touch contaminated objects. Should I worry about it?

Ducrev: Yes. So I think monkeypox can definitely spread in the home as well. That’s true. It can also be spread through contaminated sheets and towels. It can also be spread by being face-to-face with someone for a long time. That is, through saliva, like when someone coughs or sneezes. But let’s be clear here: monkeypox doesn’t spread easily by these methods. In fact, Dr. Ali Khan of the University of Nebraska Medical Center says most people don’t need to worry about catching monkeypox in regular public places.

Ali Khan: Don’t go wash your vegetables. A person with monkeypox may have touched an apple. So this is not that I went to a restaurant and got infected, this is not an accidental contact. The data are pretty clear. This requires fairly close and intimate skin-to-skin contact with an infected person.

Kelly: Okay. Mr. Pien Huang, I am bringing you here because you have reported on the response of the Biden administration. Given that we seem to know a lot more about how this is spreading than we did in the early stages of the COVID pandemic, why is the US struggling to control it?

Huang: So I think it’s a really fair question. As you know, from the beginning there was concern that the United States was slow to act and was starting with a wait-and-see approach. As you know, it was difficult to get tested and treated at first. The data are scarce and scattered. Even with the introduction of vaccines, the federal government still has more than one million vaccines available. But we can’t know exactly how many people have been vaccinated and, in fact, how many need to be vaccinated to contain this outbreak.Dr. Melanie Thompson, Atlanta , a longtime HIV doctor, says one of her patients summed it up this way:

Melanie Thompson: It feels like the beginning of early AIDS. No one wants to treat you and you don’t know where to go for help.

Huang: In recent weeks, some of these issues with access to testing and treatment have started to improve, especially in places like New York and San Francisco that have had many cases. It reminds people of the same issues we had with COVID. As you know, the United States has this patchwork public health system, and state and federal governments have trouble coordinating.

Kelly: Sounds like you’re saying that over the years we haven’t learned some of the lessons we should have learned and wanted to learn.

Huang: Yes. After all, the basic tools for ending outbreaks are the same ones that have been used for centuries. Dr. Thompson of Atlanta again.

Thompson: First, we don’t have a unified healthcare system. Too many people do not have access to routine health care. Our public health system has been underfunded and ravaged by COVID for decades.

Huang: So instead of being ready at this particular moment, the system is more depleted and broken than it was pre-pandemic.

Kelly: Oh, well. I think the last question, to both of you – Mikaline, you first – about COVID, we accept that the virus will stay here and never eradicate everyone. I think you are trying case. Monkeypox is just beginning in the United States, but will monkeypox be too?

DOUCLEFF: Unfortunately, I think our window of opportunity has already closed, or closed very quickly, with monkeypox. I think the problem is that we are still catching up with this virus. We don’t have a good idea of ​​how big this outbreak is or where it’s actually occurring. Vaccine deployment has been very slow. In some cities the supply is so low that now he only gives one dose instead of two. And even if there were enough of them at this point, we don’t know how well the vaccine would stop infection.

Huang: Okay. So this is Pien. I’ll jump in and say this is all true, but there’s actually some hope, you know, we’ve been talking about how the number of cases is going up, but monkeypox is his It doesn’t spread as fast as COVID and we already have a vaccine and antivirals for it. So the best-case scenario here is that a vaccine would be highly effective and reach at-risk populations. So it may not actually be highly contagious enough to sustain a much larger outbreak.

DOUCLEFF: And you know, like Mary Louise, the issue here is actually pretty big. As you know, if we don’t stop this in the next few months, we may have a whole new disease to deal with.

Kelly: Okay. We have a sobering update from NPR’s health correspondents Michaeleen Doucleff and Pien Huang. Thank you very much to both of you for joining us.

Huang: You’re welcome.

Ducrev: You’re welcome.

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