Biden officials award $20M monkeypox contract

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Tuesday announced it was awarding a nearly $20 million contract to AmerisourceBergen to expand the distributions of treatments and vaccines to treat the ongoing monkeypox outbreak.

  • The $19.8 million contract to AmerisourceBergen, one of the largest drug distribution companies in the U.S., will allow for the shipment of up to
    2,500 shipments of frozen Jynneos vaccine vials as well 2,500 “ambient temperature” shipments of the TPOXX antiviral treatment per week.
  • This will also allow for more locations where the shipments can be received. HHS noted that before this contract, the U.S. Strategic National Stockpile was sending products to roughly five locations per jurisdiction.

Throughout the monkeypox outbreak, state and local governments have repeatedly said they have struggled to acquire the adequate amount of vaccines to immunize their at-risk populations. Shortly after first doses of Jynneos were administered around the country, several cities ended up delaying the second dose in order to meet immediate demand while hoping more vaccine doses would soon become available.

The response by numbers: HHS said about 800,000 vials of Jynneos and
37,000 courses of TPOXX have been distributed across the country so far. As of last week, over 352,000 doses of vaccines to treat monkeypox have been administered.

 

No deaths directly caused by monkeypox have been confirmed so far, though one man in Texas who was “severely immunocompromised” recently died after having been diagnosed with monkeypox.