Up to 18,000 doses available and more vaccination sites: Here’s the latest on monkeypox in SC
A new monkeypox vaccination method announced by South Carolina health officials Friday could increase the number of vaccine doses available from around 3,400 to nearly 18,000, greatly increasing the state’s ability to reach and vaccinate people at high risk of catching the virus.
The news came out of a briefing Monday afternoon with the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, which has also been providing weekly updates on the spread of monkeypox cases around the state.
Despite the sharp increase in vaccine availability, the health department said supply is still very limited and is focusing on giving out shots to people at the “highest risk” of contracting the virus, namely members of the LGBTQ+ community at the moment.
“We would not have enough doses if every member of the high-risk population in the state, though, sought vaccination at this point in time,” said Brannon Traxler, South Carolina’s director of public health.
To reduce confusion about how the virus spreads and avoid a name seen as racist, South Carolina health officials now refer to monkeypox as “MPX,” pronounced “Em-pox.” Health officials around the globe have begun to do the same, though neither the World Health Organization nor the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have announced an official new name.
So far, South Carolina has had 100 cases of MPX spread across the Midlands, Upstate, Pee Dee and Lowcountry. Health officials have also administered 860 of the state’s 4,200 allotted doses of the Jynneous MPX vaccine.
With so few cases in the state right now, Traxler said officials do not have a complete picture of the demographic breakdown of the virus’ spread. Though, she said that she has heard in other states of racial disparities in the virus’ spread, with it primarily impacting people of color. She hopes those disparities can be avoided in South Carolina with an aggressive vaccination campaign.
“We are seeing some increases in cases, the proportion of cases that are that are Black or Hispanic persons of color,” she said. “But we’re working ... to really make sure that those subpopulations know that they’re at increased risk.”
Here are the three criteria for who is eligible for the vaccine in South Carolina:
- People who have been exposed to a confirmed positive case of MPX
- Gay or bisexual men, transgender or gender non-conforming individuals who have sex with men if they have contracted a sexually transmitted disease or have had multiple sex partners in the last 90 days
- Anyone taking PrEP, the HIV prevention treatment
However, it’s important to remember that anyone can be exposed to monkeypox and health experts say it will very likely not stay primarily within the LGBTQ+ community for long.
Expanding access to the vaccine
The new vaccination method is called an “intradermal shot,” which means the vaccine will be administered “just under the first layer of skin rather than subcutaneous shots, which go into the fat layer farther below the skin,” the state health department said in a statement Friday. A subcutaneous shot is a more traditional method of giving vaccines and is how vaccines for polio and measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) are given.
Intradermal shots require just one-fifth of the normal amount of vaccine, allowing health officials to greatly increase the number of doses they can give out.
However, South Carolina public health officials said that this method of vaccination is just as effective as the 800+ subcutaneous doses that have already been given out over the last month. The CDC already endorsed this method of vaccination a few weeks ago, but the state waited on implementing it until it could train its employees on proper administration, Traxler said.
“This is nationally not a common method of giving vaccines,” she said. “That being said, it is certainly one that nurses, paramedics, EMTs, pharmacists are all perfectly capable of, but may not have done it as frequently or as recently as other methods. And so certainly all of our nurses and other vaccine providers at our health department sites are going to be trained before they are giving it.”
In the coming days and weeks, the state will be giving out doses to health care providers beyond just local public health clinics, which have been the only source of vaccines so far.
“We are working with a number of different providers that either offer HIV prep or may serve” other at-risk populations, Traxler said. “We want to make sure, too, that we’re getting this geographically out there and that we’re not just focusing it on the larger towns and cities, and so we are working with a variety of different partners.”
Anyone with concerns about MPX or who would like to make an appointment to get a vaccine can call the state’s care line at (855) 472-3432.
This story was originally published August 29, 2022 at 3:38 PM.
