Biden monkeypox response mirrors early coronavirus missteps

“It’s been unbelievably challenging,” said Lauren Sauer, director of the Special Pathogens Research Network within a government-funded consortium of medical centers focused on pathogens training and education. “It felt like January 2020 all over again.”

More than 150 monkeypox cases have been identified in the United States since May 19, federal officials said this week, and more than 3,300 cases have been detected in 42 countries around the world.

The rapidly rising global case counts have prompted the World Health Organization to convene an emergency committee on Thursday to assess whether the monkeypox outbreak represents a public health emergency of international concern — the agency’s highest-level warning, which currently applies only to the coronavirus and polio.

But as other nations have ramped up their efforts to track and prevent the spread of infection, experts say the United States has moved too slowly to expand access to monkeypox testing and vaccinate people at highest risk. The government’s failure to clearly and urgently communicate the symptoms and risks associated with monkeypox, a disease spread by close contact that can lead to fever, pain and a visible rash, has left gay and bisexual men who are disproportionately contracting the virus especially vulnerable, public health experts say.

The plodding U.S. response so far raises doubts about the country’s preparedness for the next pandemic, some administration officials say.

Communication about whom to test, when to test them and what monkeypox symptoms look like has been dismal, said Sauer, a public health expert at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

Frustrations are running particularly high because, unlike the coronavirus, monkeypox has been studied for decades by global and U.S. experts who know the tools, strategies and vaccine protocols that can limit spread.

Biden administration officials on Wednesday said that they have amply prepared for a monkeypox outbreak, touting the government’s efforts to acquire more vaccine doses, warn the public about the emerging outbreak, and begin distributing tests to commercial labs across the country this week. They also insisted their response reflected lessons learned from fighting coronavirus, such as waiting to distribute the “right test that works” to laboratories after federal officials distributed flawed coronavirus tests in early 2020.

“All this work takes weeks to get it done right,” said Raj Panjabi, who leads the White House’s global health security efforts, reflecting on the “humility” that he said officials have tried to apply to monkeypox after struggles in containing the coronavirus and other outbreaks.