联邦卫生官员周四表示，随着全国各地迅速出现新的猴痘病例，拜登政府正在考虑是否宣布日益严重的疫情爆发为公共卫生紧急状态。
“我们继续监测全国各地对猴痘的反应，”卫生与公众服务部部长泽维尔·韦塞拉在周四的一次简报会上说。“我们将根据我们在全国看到的反应来权衡宣布公共卫生紧急状态的任何决定。底线是:我们需要保持领先，并能够结束这场疫情。”
美国疾病控制和预防中心(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)的数据显示，全美48个辖区已确诊逾4600例猴痘。在全球范围内，已经报告了超过20，000例病例——卫生专家表示，这个总数很可能被大大低估了。
“每个美国人都应该注意猴痘。猴痘不是COVID，但它是传染性的。这是痛苦的，可能是危险的，”韦塞拉说。
官员们表示，国内报道的病例中，有99%发生在出生时被认定为男性的人群中，“绝大多数”都与男性之间的性接触有关。
韦塞拉说:“我们需要每个人——无论是州还是地方卫生官员——监督医疗保健并对其管辖范围内的医疗保健负责，我们需要处于危险中的人，我们需要所有美国人尽自己的一份力量，承担起帮助我们应对猴痘的责任。”
然而，联邦官员此前证实，其他人群也受到了影响。
上周，联邦官员报告称，美国两名儿童猴痘检测呈阳性。此外，CDC周四向ABC新闻证实，一名刚刚分娩的孕妇也感染了该病毒。
疾病预防控制中心的约翰·布鲁克斯博士在美国传染病学会的一次网络研讨会上说，虽然感染可以通过胎盘转移到婴儿身上，但这种情况似乎没有发生。
他说，婴儿预防性地接受了免疫球蛋白，以增强婴儿的免疫反应，“母亲和婴儿都很好”。
食品药品监督管理局的官员周三宣布，他们已经检查并批准了另外78.6万剂猴痘疫苗的生产，以便在美国分发。到目前为止，美国已经分发了至少33.8万剂猴痘疫苗。总体而言，在未来几周内，总共将提供110万剂。
官员们表示，“我们可以有信心地说，在未来几周内，将有超过110万份疫苗到达需要它们的人手中，”他们补充说，包括已经分发的剂量，到2023年5月，联邦政府将获得超过690万剂猴痘疫苗。
在国会追加拨款之前，还可以提供1110万剂额外的药物。
“我们不知道接下来会发生什么，我们需要为传播到更多的人群做好准备，并有额外的剂量可供我们使用，所以这就是为什么我们希望继续下去，完成额外的11.1，让它可用，”官员们说。
People protest during a rally calling for more government action to combat the spread of monkeypox, on July 21, 2022 in New York City.
吉纳·穆恩/盖蒂图片社
CDC上周告诉ABC新闻，目前大约有150万美国人被认为有资格接种疫苗。
CDC高后果病原体和病理学部门的副主任Jennifer McQuiston上尉说，官员们已经更新了分配剂量的联邦计划，以包括两个关键因素:自上次分配以来，一个管辖区内面临风险的总人口数，以及每个管辖区的新病例数。
“这一更新更加重视将疫苗优先用于高危人群最多的地区，包括与携带艾滋病毒的男性发生性行为的男性，或符合艾滋病毒准备条件的男性，同时仍然考虑我们在哪里看到病例增加，”McQuiston说。
除了在高危人群中接种疫苗，检测、预防和治疗以及教育和宣传都是确保疫情得到控制的关键工具。
Biden administration still weighing whether to declare monkeypox a public health emergency
With new cases of monkeypox emerging rapidly across the country, the Biden administration is weighing whether to declare the growing outbreak a public health emergency, federal health officials said on Thursday.
"We continue to monitor the response throughout the country on monkeypox," Health and Human Service Secretary Xavier Becerra said at a briefing Thursday. "We will weigh any decision on declaring a public health emergency based on the response we're seeing throughout the country. The bottom line is: we need to stay ahead of this and be able to end this outbreak."
Across the country, more than 4,600 cases of monkeypox have been confirmed across 48 jurisdictions, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Globally, more than 20,000 cases have been reported — a total that health experts say is likely significantly undercounted.
"Every American should pay attention to monkeypox. Monkeypox is not COVID, but it is contagious. It is painful and can be dangerous," Becerra said.
Ninety-nine percent of the cases reported domestically have been reported among people who were assigned male at birth, officials said, and the "vast majority" have been related to male-to-male sexual contact.
"We need everyone — whether it's state and local health officials — who oversee health care and are responsible in their jurisdictions for health care, we need people who are at risk and we need all Americans to do their part and take responsibility to help us tackle monkeypox," Becerra said.
However, federal officials had previously confirmed that other populations have been affected.
Last week, federal officials reported that two children in the U.S. had tested positive for monkeypox. In addition, a pregnant woman, who just recently delivered, has also contracted the virus, the CDC confirmed to ABC News on Thursday.
Although infections can occur through placental transfer to the baby, that does not appear to have happened in this case, the CDC's Dr. John Brooks said during a webinar with the Infectious Disease Society of America.
The infant received immunoglobulin prophylactically, in an effort to boost the baby's immune response, and "both mom and baby are doing well," he said.
Officials from the Food and Drug Administration announced Wednesday that it had inspected and approved the manufacturing of the 786,000 more doses of JYNNEOS monkeypox vaccine for distribution in the U.S. Thus far, the U.S. has distributed at least 338,000 doses of the JYNNEOS monkeypox vaccine. Overall, in the coming weeks, a total of 1.1 million doses will have been made available.
"More than 1.1 million vaccines that we can say with confidence will be in the hands of people who need them over the course of the next several weeks," officials said, adding that including doses already distributed, the federal government will have secured more than 6.9 million monkeypox vaccine doses by May 2023.
Pending additional funding from Congress, 11.1 million additional doses could also be made available.
"We don't know what comes next and we need to be prepared for the spread into the larger population and have additional doses that we can turn to so that's the reason why we would like to go ahead and get that additional 11.1 finished, have it available," officials said.
At this time, approximately 1.5 million Americans are currently considered eligible for vaccination, the CDC told ABC News, last week.
Capt. Jennifer McQuiston, the CDC's Deputy Director of Division of High Consequence Pathogens and Pathology, said officials have updated the federal plan for allocating doses to include two key factors: the total population of people at risk in a jurisdiction, and the number of new cases in each jurisdiction, since the last allocation.
"This update gives greater weight to prioritizing vaccine to areas with the greatest number of people at risk, which includes men who have sex with men who have HIV, or who are eligible for HIV prep, while still considering where we are seeing cases increased," McQuiston said.
In addition to vaccinations in high-risk populations, testing, prevention, and treatment, as well as education and outreach, will all be critical tools to ensuring the outbreak is kept under control.
