Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
CDC Says Only High-Risk Monkeypox Patients Should Get Tpoxx
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new guidance Thursday recommending that TPoxx, the only drug available to treat monkeypox, be limited to people at high risk for severe disease even as the outbreak that has infected more than 22,000 Americans shows signs of plateauing. ... At a White House monkeypox briefing Thursday, Anthony S. Fauci, medical adviser to President Biden, said resistance is always a risk when using antiviral drugs. He said a recently launched study of TPoxx will track signs of mutation that could lead to resistance. The study is expected to enroll more than 500 patients across 60 U.S. sites. (Sun and Diamond, 9/15)
In other monkeypox news 鈥
The public has quickly become familiar with monkeypox and how it spreads, but more than a quarter of Americans say they鈥檙e not likely to get vaccinated if exposed to the virus, according to a new Annenberg Public Policy Center survey. (Bettelheim, 9/15)
Demetre Daskalakis has become caricatured as a tattooed oddity among buttoned-up bureaucrats. The truth is far different. 鈥淚 wish I were that interesting,鈥 he says. (Daniels, 9/15)
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday launched a pilot program to set aside up to 50,000 doses of JYNNEOS monkeypox vaccine for groups disproportionately affected by the outbreak who've faced barriers accessing the shots. (Dreher, 9/16)
Wastewater surveillance earlier this week detected the monkeypox virus in samples at most of Clark County鈥檚 wastewater treatment plants, signaling a potential increase in cases, a researcher said Thursday. The finding is 鈥渞ather strange鈥 since the virus had not been detected in county wastewater for two to three weeks, said Edwin Oh, a researcher and assistant professor with the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV. (Hynes, 9/15)