Biden orders 500,000 doses of monkeypox vaccine. First the demand is created, then the offer

The Biden administration has ordered an additional 500,000 doses of the Jynneos monkeypox vaccine, marking a big step in the government's response to the increase in cases in the United States and around the world.

The Danish biotech group Bavarian Nordic, manufacturer of the vaccines, said the US Authority for Advanced Research and Biomedical Development (BARDA) has placed the order, which will be delivered later this year.

"With BARDA's previous order for 1.4 million doses of frozen JYNNEOS in liquid form, awarded in 2020, this order will bring the total vaccine inventory in the United States to nearly 2 million doses," he announced. Friday the company. Many of the 1.9 million doses are held by the company pending a request from the US government.

The 500,000 doses of the vaccine will be manufactured using US-owned bulk materials under previous BARDA contracts, currently held at the company.

"Most of this bulk material, however, will be converted into approximately 13 million lyophilized doses of JYNNEOS over the period 2023-2025," said Barvarian Nordic.

Dawn O'Connell, Assistant Secretary for Preparation and Response, said on Friday that the US government has a stock of 72,000 doses of Jynneos and will receive another 300,000 doses from Bavarian Nordic in the coming weeks. He also confirmed that another 500,000 doses of Jynneos from Bavarian Nordic will be delivered later this year.

"We have the vaccines and treatments needed to respond," he said.

As of late Friday, the United States identified 49 cases of monkeypox in 16 states and the District of Columbia. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 1,470 cases have been found in about 30 other countries outside of Africa, where the virus is endemic.

The CDC said Friday that all cases reviewed in the United States involved very close contacts. Officials alerted doctors to keep an eye on cases of monkeypox and offered vaccinations to people in close contact with the infected.

Monkeypox, a viral disease typically confined to Africa, was first reported this year in the United States on May 18, Massachusetts. On the same day, the Biden administration ordered the Jynneos vaccine for $ 119 million.

While there are currently no vaccines or antivirals specifically designed to treat monkeypox, the United States has two Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved vaccines that can be used to treat monkeypox.

Jynneos is the only vaccine explicitly approved by the FDA to prevent monkeypox in the United States, in high-risk adults over the age of 18. It is also approved for use against smallpox, hence for a similar virus.

Upon approval of the Jynneos vaccine in September 2019, Peter Marks, director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said a potential "intentional release" of smallpox "could have a devastating effect."

According to the CDC, the Jynneos vaccine "is administered as a live non-replicating virus" in two injections four weeks apart. People are not considered vaccinated until two weeks after receiving the second dose of the vaccine.

Meanwhile, an older vaccine called ACAM2000, made by Emergent BioSolutions, was approved by the FDA in 2007 to prevent smallpox, but can also be used to prevent monkeypox, according to CDC recommendations.

The CDC stated that ACAM2000 "is recommended for laboratories working with certain orthopoxviruses and for military personnel." However, he noted that the ACAM2000 vaccine "has the potential for more side effects and adverse events" than the Jynneos vaccine.

The CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommends that people whose jobs may expose them to orthopoxviruses "such as monkeypox" be vaccinated with the ACAM2000 vaccine or the Jynneos vaccine.

Now the number of patients is limited, the type of virus requires close contact with a patient, the consequences are limited, in the vast majority of cases, but 500 thousand doses of a vaccine are purchased which, among other things, is for a other disease. As is done in marketing with communication the need has been created and therefore here is the company that intervenes to satisfy it. What can I say, it's a brilliant tactic.

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The Biden article orders 500,000 doses of monkeypox vaccine. First the demand is created, then the offer comes from ScenariEconomici.it .

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This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/163847-2/ on Mon, 13 Jun 2022 09:00:41 +0000.