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Reports suggest the Biden administration may declare monkeypox a public health emergency in the coming days.
A source familiar with the matter told Politico that the declaration could come as early as later this week. Such a declaration would be made by Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), led by Secretary Xavier Becerra.
Declaring a state of emergency will make additional funds available to HHS and allow more staff to deal with the problem. Becerra will hold a press conference on monkeypox on Thursday morning.
Fox News reached out to HHS and the White House for comment, but did not hear back prior to publication.
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The report comes days after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the international monkeypox virus outbreak a global health emergency.
U.S. officials are sounding alarm bells about monkeypox. Health officials in San Francisco and other major cities say they have yet to secure enough vaccines to meet demand.
California Rep. Scott Weiner (D-San Francisco) released a statement calling on Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom to declare a state of emergency.
“Unfortunately, our federal government was unable to act quickly to obtain the vaccine supply needed to prevent the outbreak, and we now find ourselves in a public health emergency that can only escalate. “Given that gay, bi and trans people are most affected, sadly it is becoming clear that we are being left behind again.”
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The monkeypox virus is spread primarily through skin-to-skin contact, but it can also be transmitted by touching linen used by an infected person. We emphasize that the majority of reported cases were men who had sex with men.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.