By: Hannah Yang

As the United States grapples with a shortage of vaccinations for monkeypox, scientists debate changing the way healthcare workers in the doses, which could possibly vaccinate five times as many patients. Although officials point out that a new way of injecting the immunization could stretch the nation’s supply of vaccines, others argue there needs to be additional research as the manner of injection could prove dangerous.

Monkeypox is a discovered disease that recently became more dangerous. It is usually spread by skin-to-skin contact. Symptoms include fever, chills, blisters, and muscle aches.

“Stretching out doses of the vaccine, Jynneos, could help the federal government resolve a predicament partly of its own making,” Sharon LaFraniere and Noah Weiland, wrote for NY Times, lamenting some of the potential challenges officially are experiencing with the vaccine roll-out and new the new manner of vaccination. “Even though it invested more than $1 billion in developing the two-dose vaccine to use against both monkeypox and smallpox, the government only has 1.1 million shots on hand, partly because it was slow to order bulk vaccine stocks to be processed into vials.”

However, monkey is rarely fatal, and no deaths have been reported in the U.S. The symptoms typically resolve in two to four weeks, and the cases have been reported 8 and now 7,510 cases. The administration is fumbling to try to provide more vaccinations and the availability of tests.

Monkeypox isn’t fatal, but it should still be taken seriously. A new vaccination strategy is risky but could be worth the challenge. But for now, the officials are balancing the cautions and are judging if the risks are worth it.

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