Smaller doses to help U.S. stretch supply of monkeypox vaccine
U.S. health officials on Tuesday authorized a plan to stretch the nation’s limited supply of monkeypox vaccine by giving people just one-fifth the usual dose, citing research suggesting that the reduced amount is about as effective.
The so-called dose-sparing approach also calls for administering the Jynneos vaccine with an injection just under the skin rather than into deeper tissue — a practice that may rev up the immune system better. Recipients would still get two shots spaced four weeks apart.
The highly unusual step is a stark acknowledgment that the U.S. currently lacks the supplies needed to vaccinate everyone seeking protection from the rapidly spreading virus.
That includes 1.6 million to 1.7 million Americans considered by federal offi- cials to be at highest risk from the disease, primar- ily men with HIV or men who have a higher risk of contracting it. Vaccinating that group would require more than 3.2 million shots.
White House officials said the new policy would immediately multiply the 440,000 currently available as full doses into more than 2 million smaller doses.
“It’s safe, it’s effective, and it will significantly scale the volume of vaccine doses available for communities across the country,” Robert Fenton, the White House’s monkeypox response coor- dinator, told reporters.
The Biden administration declared monkeypox a public health emergency last week in an effort to slow the growing outbreak that has infected more than 8,900 Americ a ns. Officials announced a sepa- rate determination Tuesday that allows the Food and Drug Administration to expedite its review of medical products or new uses for them, such as the dose-sparing technique for Jynneos.
The FDA authorized the new approach for adults 18 and older who are at high risk of monkeypox infection. Younger people can also get the vaccine if they are deemed high risk, though they should receive the traditional injection, the agency said.
FDA officials stressed that the second dose is critical to ensuring protection.
“We feel pretty strongly that the two doses are necessary because, in part, we don’t have any evidence that three, six, eight months
later people will be adequately protected by a single dose,” said Dr. Peter Marks, the FDA’s vaccine chief.
Regulators pointed to a 2015 study showing that inoculation with one-fifth of the traditional two-dose vaccine generated a robust immune-system response comparable to that of the full dose. About 94% of people receiving the smaller dose had adequate levels of virus-fighting antibodies, compared with 98% of those receiving the full dose, according to the study funded by the National Institutes of Health.
The NIH is planning an additional trial of the technique in coming months. And Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said her agency is already starting to track real-world effectiveness in U.S. communities, though initial estimates will take time to generate.