U.S. declares monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency - CBS News

The Biden administration is declaring a public health emergency for the monkeypox outbreak in the United States, which now counts more infections from the virus than any other country in the world.

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra announced the decision at a briefing with top public health officials Thursday.

And it will allow us to get more data from jurisdictions so we can effectively track and attack this outbreak," Robert Fenton, the newly appointed White House national monkeypox response coordinator, said at the briefing.

As it did for COVID-19, official said the move by Becerra to declare an emergency could unlock a broad swath of flexibilities in funding and regulations to respond to the spread of monkeypox.

The public health emergency declaration could pave the way for the CDC to deploy more staff to respond to the outbreak, officials said, as well as to compel hospitals to share more data to track monkeypox patients.

One such authorization, first floated by a National Institutes of Health official earlier this week at a meeting with the World Health Organization, could allow for vaccinators to quintuple their supply by injecting smaller "intradermal" doses into the skin, instead of the "subcutaneous" method currently approved for Jynneos.

The move comes as a growing number of jurisdictions, including several states and cities, as well as the World Health Organization have all deemed the outbreak an emergency.

This week, President Biden also tapped officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the CDC to helm the country's monkeypox response from the White House.

Beyond freeing up additional levers in the federal bureaucracy to respond to the outbreak, officials said they hoped the declaration would raise awareness around the growing outbreak.