The state with the most monkeypox cases, New York, only had 1,000 monkeypox vaccines while the U.S. had 372,000 doses waiting overseas, The New York Times reported July 25.
New York City accounts for nearly 30 percent of the nation's monkeypox cases with 1,092 reported cases as of July 26, according to the city's health department. The state ordered thousands of monkeypox vaccines in response, but critics — especially among the LGBTQ community, since most cases are among men who have sex with men — say government action was too slow.
"The U.S. government intentionally de-prioritized gay men's health in the midst of an out-of-control outbreak because of a potential bioterrorist threat that does not currently exist," James Krellenstein, a gay activist from Brooklyn, told the Times. The vaccine was originally developed and accumulated to be used against smallpox.
The leader in charge of the nation's monkeypox vaccine supply, Gary Disbrow, PhD, told the Times the government was "moving very quickly," but in the weeks following the first few monkeypox cases in the U.S., the government only requested 72,000 doses, leaving 300,000 in Denmark, where the monkeypox vaccine manufacturer Bavarian Nordic is headquartered.
A senior official of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority told the Times the reason for the small request was because the agency didn't want to risk wasting doses, which require cold storage. Some aren't accepting these reasons, though.
Microbiologist and queer activist Joseph Osmundson, PhD, told the Times, "There is no excuse for this level of bureaucratic inaction."