US surpasses 10,000 monkeypox cases; double over last 2 weeks
Los Angeles County Health Department officials say the county's monkeypox profile is similar to the national spread.
LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- The number of monkeypox cases in the U.S. is now topping the 10,000 mark, roughly doubling in the last two weeks.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's latest data shows 10,392 cases of monkeypox that have been reported across the country.
Los Angeles County Health Department officials say the county's monkeypox profile is similar to the national spread.
"To date, there have been 738 cases of monkeypox identified in L.A. County, which is double the number of cases we had 12 days ago," said Dr. Rita Singhall of the L.A. County Public Health Department. "Additionally, there have been 33 cases reported in Long Beach and eight cases reported in Pasadena."
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Nationwide, the rapid spread has led to long lines of people seeking the hard-to-get monkeypox vaccine in many cities and prompted the Food and Drug Administration to squeeze five doses out of what used to be just one dose.
The FDA says this move should increase the number of vaccine doses in the national stockpile from 441,000 to more than 2.2 million.
The FDA added the doses are delivered with a shorter needle and has resulted in more redness, firmness, itchiness and swelling at the injection site, but the agency says those who have been studied had less pain, and the side effects were manageable.
Some medical experts say this way of administering vaccines can actually be more effective than the usual process, but needs to be administered differently.
"The folks who are giving it are going to have to use different needles, draw up different amounts, so there's going to be an element of training that's going to have to go along with this," said Dr. Megan Ranney, Associate Dean of Public Health at Brown University.
L.A. County officials say they have received about 43,000 doses of the monkeypox vaccine, three-quarters of which have already been administered.
But with more shipments expected and the FDA's new dose splitting, county officials say they should be able to reach tens of thousands more people who are at risk of catching the virus.
"We will be able to fully vaccinate with two doses, as a two-dose series, 85,000 to 90,000 people in L.A. County," Singhall said.
Almost every state in the US has at least one case of monkeypox.
Wyoming is the only state that doesn't. New York has the most, followed by California and Florida.
