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As demand for monkeypox vaccines increases, the World Health Organization (WHO) has begun to receive preliminary reports on the efficacy of the shots, which suggests there are breakthrough cases occurring, officials said Wednesday. "We have known from the beginning that this vaccine would not be a silver bullet, that it would not meet all the expectations that are being put on it, and that we don't have firm efficacy data or effectiveness data in this context," officials said during a press conference. (Mitropoulos, 8/17)

Such cases provide “important information that tells us the vaccine is not 100% effective in any given circumstance,” Dr. Rosamund Lewis, the WHO’s technical lead on monkeypox, said at a press conference. Breakthrough infections have occurred when the vaccine was given before exposure to high-risk individuals, as well as when it was given after exposure in hopes of preventing infection, Lewis said. (Prater, 8/18)

The only approved vaccine for monkeypox is from developer Bavarian Nordic and is being used as both a preventative vaccine, as well as to protect people recently exposed to the virus. ... There is limited data on the efficacy of the vaccine, and what is available has been drawn from animal studies. The main study used to indicate efficacy dates back to the 1980s and looked at a different type of smallpox vaccine — potentially more powerful than the safer vaccines that have since been developed. That study showed 85 percent protection against monkeypox. (Furlong, 8/17)

Smallpox vaccinations may not protect against monkeypox for life, research suggests, with experts saying HIV may play a role in eroding protection from the jab over time. ... Dr. Oriol Mitja, co-author of the research, said that since most participants who had been vaccinated against smallpox received the jab more than 45 years ago, it is reasonable to predict that their protection would have waned. “All I can say is that childhood vaccinations may not protect 100% for life,” he said. (Davis, 8/15)