Due to monkeypox, the United States raises the health emergency for the entire country.
The US government announced this Thursday that it will declare the national health emergency from the outbreak of monkeypox that is recorded in that country, in which thousands of infections have already been recorded even if, for the moment, no deaths.
“We are ready to take ours next level answer“, explained the US Secretary of Health Xavier Becerra this Thursday in a dialogue with journalists.
Until now, the measure had been enacted in states such as New York, California and Illinois, but now it will have a national character.
The declaration will free up federal money and other resources to fight the virus, which can cause fever, body aches, chills, fatigue and pimples in many parts of the body. People spoke on condition of anonymity before the official announcement.
The Joe Biden administration has faced criticism over the limited availability of monkeypox vaccines. Clinics in major cities like New York and San Francisco say they haven’t received enough vaccine to meet demand, and some have had to stop offering the second dose to administer the first.
The White House, reports the AP agency, claimed to have made available more than 1.1 million doses and helped increase national diagnostic capacity to 80,000 tests per week.
This virus is spread through prolonged and close contact of skin to skin or with sheets, towels and clothes. The people who have gotten sick so far have mostly been men who have had sex with men. But health authorities point out that it can be infected to everyone.
Three days ago, the Biden administration appointed senior officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention White House coordinators to combat the monkeypox epidemic.
Lines to get monkeypox vaccine at Obregon Park in Los Angeles, California. The United States raises the state of alert before the disease. photo EFE
A health emergency can spread, similar to what happened during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The decision of the central government of the United States comes after some states that make it up have made the same decision.
California, on the west coast, and Illinois, on the east, declared a state of emergency on Monday, Aug.2, due to the increase in the number of monkeypox cases, adding to it. New York, which had done the same thing last Friday.
The United States registered about six thousand cases of monkeypox in recent months, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
Last week, the World Health Organization described monkeypox as a public health emergency, with cases in more than 70 countries. A global emergency is the highest alert level in the WHO, but the designation does not necessarily mean that a disease is particularly communicable or fatal.
Monkeypox in Argentina
In the last Epidemiological Bulletin of last Monday, the Ministry of Health of the Nation reported that in Argentina there are so far 23 cases of the diseasecolloquially known as monkeypox.
Health Minister Carla Vizzotti revealed that the vaccines will be received in the face of the advance of monkeypox.
Even if for now the cases are few in the country, the government receive vaccines to be applied to specific groups.
According to the newsletter of Carla Vizzotti’s portfolio, the 56.5 percent of confirmed cases in Argentina are resident in City of Buenos Aires and the 26 percent in the province of Buenos Aires.
The middle age of cases it is 36 years old with a minimum of 24 and a maximum of 47 years.
All cases they are male and at least 73% of infected people contracted the virus after having sex with other men. No deaths from the disease have been reported so far.
With information from EFE and AP
ds
Source: Clarin
