There aren't enough monkeypox vaccines to go around.
The monkeypox outbreak, which the World Health Organization recently declared a global health emergency, has hit 74 countries, including 68 countries where the disease is not endemic. With 2,890 reported cases, the U.S. is the country with the second most cases, CDC data shows. Spain is barely ahead with 3,125 reported monkeypox cases.
There's one company making Jynneos, the only monkeypox vaccine available, but it isn't running at full capacity until later this summer since one of its plants is under construction. Jynneos' manufacturer, Bavarian Nordic, is also tasked with supplying the rest of the world, which has reported 16,836 cases as of July 20.
Some cities are running through supplies by prioritizing primary doses in the two-dose series, meaning some people could have a delayed second shot as health systems wait for more supply to funnel through.
The list of cities and states reporting shortages has only grown, including Chicago, Minnesota, Texas and California.
"We're a hotspot waiting to happen. That's what it feels like to me," David Wichman, a sex worker and massage therapist working in Cathedral City, Calif., told ABC affiliate KESQ-TV. "That rollout has been really slow and very aggravating."
The U.S. has a national stockpile of nearly 7 million doses of the Jynneos vaccine, and the government has already shipped 131,000 doses to states. The demand is too hot to quell, though.
Lines of hundreds of people are crowding city blocks, forcing healthcare workers to turn people away after supply runs short, and the surge in online appointments for the vaccine is overwhelming health systems' websites.
Waitlists are also growing, which worries some LGBTQ health advocates since the majority of cases are among men who have sex with men.
"This is an incredibly frustrating and infuriating moment where we are once again as members of the LGBTQ+ community facing a public health failure," San Francisco AIDS Foundation CEO Tyler TerMeer, PhD, told ABC News.