Monkeypox case count grows on Long Island

The number of confirmed monkeypox cases on Long Island has grown to at least 18, while a top White House official on Sunday said he was optimistic the outbreak could be brought under control in the United States.

Cases across New York increased to 900 as of Friday, according to the latest data available from the state Department of Health. Of those cases, 839 were in New York City, 13 in Suffolk County and five in Nassau County. That’s up from 651 statewide last Monday, with five in Suffolk and three in Nassau.

Meanwhile White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha told "Face the Nation" on CBS that the virus “can be contained” in the United States, citing ramped up testing and vaccination efforts.

"Right now, we have over 2,000 cases, but we have ramped up vaccinations, ramped up treatments, ramped up testing, and we're going to continue to look at all sorts of policy options,” Jha said.

He expressed his confident view the day after the World Health Organization declared monkeypox a “public health emergency of international concern,” which means it could potentially require an internationally coordinated response.

Jha, a public health expert who served as dean of the Brown University School of Public Health before joining the White House earlier this year, said while there are “outbreaks that are out of control in many parts of the world,” he believed the federal government had the ability to “get our arms around this thing."

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 16,000 cases of monkeypox have been reported in 74 countries since about May.

The World Health Organization's top monkeypox expert, Dr. Rosamund Lewis, has said that 99% of all the monkeypox cases beyond Africa were in men and that of those, 98% involved men who have sex with men. Experts suspect the monkeypox outbreaks in Europe and North America were spread via sex at two raves in Belgium and Spain.

Asked if the Biden Administration was considering declaring the virus a federal public health emergency, Jha said it was something the Department of Health and Human Services “might invoke,” if federal health agencies needed “further tools” and resources to stop the spread.

Meanwhile more vaccine doses are expected to become available on Long Island this week.

Vaccine doses require an appointment, which in Suffolk County can be made by visiting suffolkcountyny.gov/monkeypox. A new slate of appointments in Fire Island is expected to become available Monday, Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone said last week.

The vaccine will also be distributed at the Edie Windsor Healthcare Center in Hampton Bays.

Northwell Health clinics include Nassau County locations. Appointments in both counties can be found on the system's vaccine appointment website.

Nassau University Medical Center is offering monkeypox vaccination appointments via phone and availability can be checked by calling 516-486-6862.

With AP