Schumer: New York to get more than 100,000 monkeypox vaccine doses

New York is set to receive over 100,000 doses of monkeypox vaccine, out of the 786,000 doses recently approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Sen. Chuck Schumer said Thursday.

Schumer (D-N.Y.) said New York City is set to receive about 80,000 doses, with the rest of the state slated to get about 30,000 doses.

In a statement, Schumer said “many” of those 30,000 doses will go to Long Island.

Critics have said there has not been enough supply of the monkeypox vaccine to meet the demand and stem the tide of the outbreak. There are currently 4,639 monkeypox cases in the United States, including 1,228 in New York, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“The federal government has more work to do to fully contain the monkeypox threat, but today marks a critical step in that fight and delivers a huge sigh of relief to New Yorkers waiting for their monkeypox vaccine,” Schumer said. “More are on the way.”

“We believe we have done everything we can at the federal level to work with our state and local partners and communities affected to make sure we can stay ahead of this and end this outbreak,” Xavier Becerra, head of the Department of Health and Human Services, told reporters on a call Thursday.

But he added that local health officials “must do their part. ... We don't have the authority to tell them what to do.”

The two-shot JYNNEOS vaccine, manufactured by Bavarian Nordic, was approved to prevent monkeypox and smallpox.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials said they had finished an inspection of a Bavarian Nordic plant in Denmark, where the vaccines were manufactured, and “determined the vaccine meets its quality standards,” according to a thread on Twitter the agency sent out on Wednesday.

"Additional doses manufactured at this plant can help address the need for this vaccine moving forward," the agency said.

Monkeypox is a rare disease and part of the same family of viruses that causes smallpox, according to the CDC. Symptoms include fever, headache, exhaustion, swollen lymph nodes and a rash that looks like pimples or blisters.

The disease is not usually fatal, the CDC said, but people who are pregnant, those with weakened immune systems and young children under the age of eight may be more likely to get seriously ill or die.

With The Associated Press

By Lisa L. Colangelo

lisa.colangelo@newsday.com@lisalcolangelo

Lisa joined Newsday as a staff writer in 2019. She previously worked at amNewYork, the New York Daily News and the Asbury Park Press covering politics, government and general assignment.