HHS orders additional vaccine, increases testing capacity to respond to monkeypox outbreak
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) placed an order for another 2.5 million doses of Bavarian Nordic’s JYNNEOS vaccine to respond to the current monkeypox outbreak and strengthen the country’s smallpox preparedness.
This order follows a July 1 order for 2.5 million doses that will begin arriving in the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) over the next year.
Deliveries from the 2.5 million dose order on July 15, 2022, will begin arriving at the SNS in 2023, bringing the federal government’s available supply of vaccine to treat monkeypox to nearly 7 million doses by mid-2023.
HHS also announced that an additional 131,000 doses of JYNNEOS just arrived in the SNS and the department is making these doses immediately available to states and jurisdictions. This latest allocation of vaccine brings the total number of doses made available to states and jurisdictions since late May to more than 300,000 doses.
HHS has shipped out all of the doses that have been ordered by states and jurisdictions, approximately 156,000 doses, with about 100,000 doses of those delivered.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration also recently announced that it has completed its inspection of the Bavarian Nordic manufacturing facility in Denmark. Observations from inspections inform FDA’s evaluation of other quality information submitted by sponsors, which are critical to helping ensure vaccines’ safety and effectiveness. Doses from the facility can potentially be approved by the end of July, which would mean that approximately 780,000 additional doses would be added to the government’s available supply.
