South Florida prepares as CDC warns of potential summer resurgence of mpox

South Florida Sun Sentinel - 5/18/2023

With summer PRIDE events ahead, federal health officials urged people at risk for mpox to get vaccinated and released new research Thursday that shows the two-shot series is highly effective.

“Vaccines work, and our strategy of vaccinating people remains core to preventing mpox,” said Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, White House National mpox Response Deputy Coordinator. He added that only one-fourth of the 1.7 million individuals at risk are fully vaccinated.

In South Florida, where 1,741 people have had mpox, formerly called monkeypox, since the U.S. outbreak began last summer, organizations like the Pride Center at Equality Park held town halls and vaccine drives to stop the spread. During the height of the outbreak, cases in South Florida were, in some instances, doubling or tripling every week. Now, local organizations will need to re-energize their efforts.

Robert Boo, CEO of the Pride Center at Equality Park, said his organization hosted a virtual town hall last week to educate South Florida residents on mpox. He plans to post the recording on the Pride Center’s YouTube channel.

“We talked about the need for vaccination as we head into the warmer months,” Boo said. “Throughout the country there are PRIDE events, and as the weather gets warm, there’s more opportunities for parties, celebrations, dances and people taking off their shirts, so there’s more exposure.”

A year after the organization’s previous town hall, Boo said the education needs to continue. “If they got one shot, it’s never too late to get a second. Even people who have gotten both shots need to be careful. It’s not 100% effective. It’s not like you have a shield around you.”

Boo said he has reached out to the local health department and hopes to have a vaccination event prior to the PRIDE event in Delray Beach on June 10. Since January, six new cases of mpox have been diagnosed in Broward County.

Nationwide, as of March 31, nearly 31,400 mpox cases and 42 deaths have been reported since the outbreak last year, the CDC report released Thursday shows. The study comes as the CDC and the Chicago Department of Public Health reported a recent outbreak of mpox, with 21 people infected.

To evaluate the vaccine’s effectiveness against mpox, which circulates mostly among men who have sex with men and transgender adults, the researchers from CDC and other U.S. institutions analyzed data on 309 patients with mpox and 608 control patients ages 18 to 49.

The report findings show:

Broward County was at the epicenter of the outbreak in Florida last summer and on the forefront of giving out vaccine doses. As mpox rapidly spread in the fall of 2022, federal officials became concerned about shortages of the JYNNEOS vaccine. To extend doses available, the FDA authorized a strategy in August to inject the vaccine intradermally, just below the first layer of skin, rather than subcutaneously, or under all the layers of skin. The change allowed one vial of vaccine to be given out as five separate doses rather than a single dose.

Since summer 2022, more than 1.2 million doses have been administered.

Dr. Christopher R. Braden, the CDC mpox response incident manager, said supply is no longer a concern and people should be able to get vaccinated using either method. “We are in a very different place than the spring-summer 2022.”

Daskalakis said with the potential for the risk this summer of a new outbreak, federal agencies are doing outreach at PRIDE celebrations and creating partnerships to hold vaccination programs at events. “We are working with organizations and local health departments to see where those opportunities make sense,” he said.

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Sun Sentinel health reporter Cindy Goodman can be reached at cgoodman@sunsentinel.com.