A monkeypox vaccine clinic at San Francisco General Hospital opened to long lines Wednesday morning and turned away many people, ABC7 reported.
The San Francisco Department of Public Health had requested 35,000 vaccines but received only 3,580 in the initial shipment and another 4,163 this week — “which will be used within days,” London Mayor Breed said in a letter she wrote to federal health officials. employees and posted on Twitter Wednesday morning.
Cases of monkeypox are on the rise in San Francisco, prompting state and local leaders to ask federal health officials for more vaccines to meet growing demand from residents who want shots but are turned away at clinics.
The number of monkeypox cases in the city has risen to 141 from 86 cases just a few days ago. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported 2,322 cases of the painful but rarely fatal viral disease, which mostly causes a rash. California has reported 356 cases since July 19, more than a third in San Francisco. Overall, California has the second highest number of known cases of any state after New York, the CDC said.
Breed wrote in his letter that this “is a critical point in the spread of this virus and we must take more urgent action.”
San Francisco now has 141 diagnosed cases of monkeypox, more than most states. We need more vaccines to protect our LGBTQ community, who are at higher risk, and to slow the spread. pic.twitter.com/i3GeSHXxa6
— London Breed (@LondonBreed) July 20, 2022
The Department of Public Health distributes doses of Jynneos, the only vaccine specifically approved to prevent monkeypox, at clinics throughout the city, including Kaiser Permanente (for a complete list of locations and to schedule an appointment in San Francisco, visit the department). The department reserves the vaccine for gay and bisexual men, as well as sex workers and people with known exposure to monkeypox.
Anyone can contract monkeypox through close physical contact with an infected person, but the current outbreak in North America and Europe disproportionately affects men who have sex with other men. Although public health officials and doctors are eager to avoid stigmatizing the virus, there is some concern among experts that avoiding the topic could prevent valuable information from reaching the people most likely to be affected. Science reporter Benjamin Ryan, for example, wrote in the Washington Post on July 18 that public health officials are doing a disservice by not communicating “the seriousness of this growing crisis to gay and bisexual men.”
State Sen. Scott Wiener, along with 10 other lawmakers, advocated for the gay community in a letter Wednesday addressed to Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“Gay and bisexual men, transgender people and others at risk desperately want the vaccine to protect themselves and those around them,” Wiener wrote. “Yet, instead of quickly mobilizing for a mass vaccination campaign with this existing safe and effective vaccine, many of our counties do not have the supplies to vaccinate all who seek the vaccine.” In San Francisco, for example, people wait in lines for 9 hours in the hope of getting a scarce vaccine.
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