The Department of Health and Human Services of the United States (HHS, for its acronym in English) has announced this Friday that it will not renew the declaration of public health emergency due to the outbreak of monkey pox when it expires early next year.
The decision falls within the low number of positive cases that are currently being reported, which is why HHS has ruled out extending the measure, according to the newspaper ‘The Hill’.
“Given the low number of cases today, HHS does not expect it to need to renew the emergency declaration when it ends on January 31, 2023. But we will not take our foot off the gas, continue to monitor case trends closely and encourage all people to at risk to get a free vaccine,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement.
HHS has confirmed that this decision has been based on “current data”, adding that it “would not be afraid” to change course if conditions change in the future.
The statement was last renewed once in November, when Becerra justified the move by citing the “continuing consequences of an outbreak of monkeypox cases in several states.”
However, already then they glimpsed some indications that the Biden Administration was taking steps back in terms of the national response to monkey smallpox, according to the aforementioned newspaper.
Without treatments made specifically for monkeypox, health workers in the United States and other countries have turned to commonly used vaccines and treatments for smallpox, which belongs to the same family of viruses as ‘mpox’. ‘.