Monkey pox: why New Yorkers are panicking

Two months after its appearance in the United Kingdom, it worries America. According the website nyc.gov, 461 cases of monkeypox contamination were recorded this Friday, July 15 in New York, against only 223 the previous Monday. A significant increase (206%), which is now pushing the American epicenter of the disease to move up a gear. This weekend, several vaccination centers opened in and around Manhattan, and thousands of panicked New Yorkers have already stopped by to receive their first dose.

Questioned by our colleagues from AFP, these city dwellers (mostly men aged 20 to 40) explain that they were lucky. This Friday, July 15, on the sidelines of the announcement of the number of contaminations, 9,200 slots were released. All of them were gone in just 7 minutes. “It’s frustrating, especially because with Covid, you would have thought there would be a more structured process for rolling out vaccines, but there really wasn’t a process.“, saddens Aidan Baglivo, 23 years old.

The second dose could be delayed

In New York, 21,500 doses of vaccines have already been injected and 30,000 more should be in the coming weeks. However, in view of the demand, the nyc.gov site informs those vaccinated that they may not receive their 2^th dose within 28 days advised by the Food and Drug Administration, which controls the marketing of drugs in the United States. “Despite this delay, it should not affect the immune response to the second dose“, however, underlines the site.

As a reminder, monkeypox is a rare viral disease transmitted by close contact. Its symptoms, very similar to those of human smallpox, include fever, muscle aches and skin lesions. In France, as of July 7, 2022, 721 cases of contamination have been recorded.