Health experts in the United States and around the world are "cautiously optimistic" due to the falling number of monkeypox cases in New York and globally as authorities distribute more vaccines for the infection.
On Thursday, New York City reported that 2,885 monkeypox cases had been identified in the city since the first case was identified in May. In mid-August, roughly 50 new monkeypox cases were being detected every day, which is a drop from the 70 or so new daily cases emerging in late July and early August.
Slowing Monkeypox Infection
During a City Council meeting on Wednesday, the New York City health commissioner, Dr. Ashwin Vasan, said, "In recent days, we have begun to see cases fall and transmission slow." Monkeypox infections are also dropping in parts of California and in Europe, which at one point had 90% of the world's cases.
On Thursday, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that monkeypox cases worldwide dropped 21% last week. However, the overall trend masked rising cases in other parts of the world, including Latin America and Africa, as per the New York Times.
In New York, Vasan attributed the fall in cases to the city's efforts to get tens of thousands of people vaccinated as soon as possible. The city has already administered 69,311 doses of the vaccine.
The medical expert also said that "the heroic efforts of community leaders and advocates to disseminate messaging" about how to prevent the spread of the disease had contributed to the decline of infections.
According to the Washington Post, the situation comes after three months of surging monkeypox cases. In the past two weeks, new U.S. cases of the infection have dropped by roughly 25% and come as nearly 17,000 Americans have been diagnosed with monkeypox.
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Cautious Optimism
While public health experts cheered the slowing of new infections, they warned that the virus continues to pose a risk, especially in smaller communities outside U.S. urban centers and in developing countries amid vaccine shortages, limited surveillance, and insufficient testing.
All these factors could increasingly spill beyond the gay and bisexual community and affect other groups. Furthermore, epidemiologists and health officials report ongoing challenges with the White House's new vaccine strategy to stretch the number of doses available.
In a statement on Thursday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, "There are signs that the outbreak is slowing in Europe, where a combination of effective public health measures, behavior change, and vaccination are helping to prevent transmission."
An epidemiologist at the University of California at Los Angeles, Anne Rimoin, who has studied the monkeypox outbreak, said that a drop in cases is expected after growing awareness and a push for vaccinations.
On the other hand, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, said, "We're watching this with cautious optimism, and really hopefully that many of our harm-reduction messages and our vaccines are getting out there and working."
Chicago's public health commissioner, Dr. Allison Arwady, said that they were not seeing the potentially exponential growth that was observed early on in the outbreak. During a Facebook live event earlier this week, the health expert said that it was too early to say things look really good but noted that some signs showed slowing cases, CNBC reported.
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