Welcome back to Chester's news wrap the world Health Organization
is holding a second emergency meeting about the monkey pox
outbreak today. They're meeting to decide if monkeypox should
be classified as a global health emergency. And joining
me now to discuss is dr William Schaffner, professor
of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt Medical Center. Doctor Good
to see you the voted against this nearly a month
ago. What has led them to take a second
look at this decision and can you give us just
a snapshot of how quickly cases are rising? Well
cases certainly arising Asia here in the United States,
we've had over 2000 cases reported and about 100 or
more new ones are being reported daily. And we
think that's a substantial undercount because testing is only now
becoming more widely available and this is happening also in
europe and other Western countries. So it's a notable
new phenomenon in the West But a big difference from
other kinds of outbreaks that the considers is that there
are no fatalities. This is not an infection that
kills over time. It takes about 2-3 to 4
weeks. These lesions, these blisters that occur,
these monkey pox lesions will all go away and they
heal themselves and so it doesn't have the same sort
of urgency. But because there's so much international interest
, the W. H. O. Is bringing
its committee together once again to see whether this should
be designated a public health emergency of international concern.
Yeah, it sounds very similar to the progress that
we've seen with coronavirus with vaccinations and that while it's
not maybe as deadly for some individuals, it can
also have an impact economically. But what is the
likelihood of monkeypox actually being declared a global health emergency
at this point? Yeah. Well, my crystal
ball suggests that once again the W the W.
H. O. Will give it a pass.
They won't do that. Uh else they would have
to look at any number of other diseases that are
out there that are spreading widely in many parts of
the world. Tuberculosis for example, that causes many
more deaths but has not been declared a public health
emergency. So they have a kind of a balancing
act to perform here. And I think the designation
public health Emergency of international concern was never intended for
this kind of infection for covid when it first started
. For sure because it caused many many deaths.
Monkeypox, not so much. I don't think really
interesting to get that take as well. How it
could almost open up a whole new can of worms
with other disease. But scientists are noting some of
the differences between the outbreaks in Africa and other Western
countries. Can you walk us through some of these
differences? Well, there are differences and when the
virus came to the west, it threw us some
curves. Or as I like to say, the
virus didn't read the textbook in central and Western africa
. When people get monkey pox, the pattern of
the pox on the body is very distinctive. Arms
, palms, legs, feet, and the head
and neck. But and they usually have many,
many lesions. However, when it's come to the
West being transmitted through sexual intimacies, it behaves differently
. You can have very few lesions and they can
be on the trunk, around your genitals and around
your backside for example, they may not be as
easy to see. They're not as obvious. People
seem not to get as sick and some of that
may well be because here in the West were generally
better nourished than they are in West africa. Yeah
, this sounds really concerning because it is different here
in the US versus other countries. I wanted to
ask you though, vaccines are very limited right now
. We've seen this even here in new york city
. Tell us about the vaccine, the eligibility and
when we can see people have broader access to it
. Well, the vaccine that we're using now is
made by one manufacturer was really manufactured to protect against
smallpox. Yes, against monkey pox also, but
against smallpox. And it was targeted at people who
were working with this virus in laboratories or similar viruses
. So it had a relatively speaking small output and
all of a sudden the demand has gone up very
much. And so the company is working day and
night to produce more vaccine. We're not going to
get huge amounts of vaccine here in the United States
. So at the moment, the vaccine is targeted
to geographic areas where there is a lot of transmission
. You mentioned new york, for example, and
it is targeted at people who are exposed already,
where there's a known exposure and then it can prevent
the development of the disease. It also may be
given to people who are immune compromised, who might
get more severe disease. Okay, Dr William Schaffner
, professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt Medical Center.
Always good to have your insight. Thanks for joining 00:05:42.670 --> us.