Biden administration plans to declare the monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency

CNN

By MJ Lee, CNN Political Correspondent

The Biden administration plans to declare monkeypox a public health emergency as early as Thursday, a source familiar with the decision told CNN.

The announcement would come from the Department of Health and Human Services. With cases on the rise across the US, the administration has been criticized at times for its handling of the outbreak, and some have called on the government to declare a national emergency without delay.

One of those criticisms, as CNN reported earlier Thursday, was that HHS waited more than three weeks after the first confirmed case of monkeypox in the US to order bulk stocks of the monkeypox vaccine, which the government owns and stores in Denmark, be bottled and sent to the US for distribution. The delay was in part out of concern that once those vaccines were taken out of bulk storage, they would lose years of shelf life.

Politico was first to report on the expected declaration.

This is a breaking story and will be updated.

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